How to Foil an Outcast's Plan
by atippleofyourtears
Summary: When Hiccup goes on a diplomacy run to Hopeless to discuss the dragons in his father's stead, his prying into the strange goings-on there lands in him in some serious hot water. Can his friends save him before his life and sanity are forfeit-and before the dragon-training knowledge falls into the hands of Berk's enemies?
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

**A/N: **Okay, I lied. I'm writing more fic, but I do it as my reward for writing my original story.

This takes place mid-season of Riders of Berk and goes AU from there. Please take note, this fic has some implied character torture and mentions of suicidal ideation but there'll be nothing graphic and I'm hoping to go not much darker than the tone of the movies. For the most part, it's an adventure story rather than a torture-fic.

Many thanks to my lovely beta and sounding board, Kendra.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Intro**

* * *

_There's a saying among Vikings that a boy's will is the will of the wind. I always took it to mean that when someone is young they usually do everything on pure whim, and I'm fairly sure I've heard my dad say it about me before-usually under his breath._

_Then again, I did have the slightest problem with focus on occasion: projects to put together, dragons to try to slay to prove myself, you know how it goes. Ignoring the-shall we call them "physical restrictions"?-that came of being built like a several twigs tied together with yarn, it was the biggest reason why my dad never trusted me with anything important and why I had a reputation of being a screw-up in places other than Berk. Generally speaking, it's a bit hard to get your chief on when you're wrecking the village once a week. A chief's son was supposed to be capable of so much more than I was. _

_Sometimes, though, when someone has "the will of the wind," it means something other than the usual impulsive actions of youth. Sometimes it means they change their mind every two seconds rather than every two days like a kid might. Sometimes it means maybe, just maybe, they aren't exactly a bastion of sanity, even by Viking standards. (And trust me, those standards are not the most exacting for a people that think there's nothing wrong with a good berserker rage now and again.)_

_This is the story about the first time my dad trusted me with something important._

_It's also the story about the time I went __**crazy.**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"I'm noooot sure this is the best idea, Snotlout." Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, trainer of dragons and slayer of the Green Death was eying the ominous, creaking rig that was fashioned between two houses with a measure of skepticism-and even possibly fear, if he got right down to it. He was sitting atop Toothless, who was currently perched on the roof of the Bjorn the Butcher.

"What are you talking about?" said Snotlout, waving his arms exuberantly as he sat there atop his hovering Monstrous Nightmare. "Look, we're tired of the two-foot-touch rule, right?"

"_I'm_ not tired of the two-foot-touch rule," Ruffnut insisted from the neck of the Zippleback she shared with her brother. "It works just fine."

"Yeah, it works fine until you take a look at the fact that it's practically an honor system," insisted Tuffnut. "The only way people don't cheat and actually make sure their dragon's feet touch the goal points is if we have someone watching and that means that one person has to sit out of the race."

"Yeah, but that means if everyone's racing, we get away with cheating all the time," Ruffnut pointed out.

"Exactly!" Tuffnut pointed out. "The way it is now other people can cheat, too! How is that fair?"

"Technically speaking," Hiccup pointed out with a measure of amusement in his voice, "If everyone can cheat, it means everyone has the same advantage, which makes it fair."

"It's only fair if we're the only ones that can cheat," insisted Tuffnut. "_Duh_."

"Well, when you put it that way..." said Hiccup, as if he'd been persuaded.

"While I agree we have to take problems of practicality into consideration in regards to the current rule system, what I think Hiccup is trying to say is that the structural integrity of this racing hoop is...questionable," Fishlegs said pointedly, gesturing at the structure Snotlout wanted to employ as a replacement for the two-foot touch system. "It also gives the less maneuverable dragons a distinct disadvantage, meaning they might crash into the hoops, and well..."

"Yeah, Snotlout, is it _supposed_ to be a death trap on purpose?" asked Astrid teasingly. "Is that part of the game, that if we don't get through the hoops, they collapse on us and kill us instantly? I guess that's one way of losing."

"Well, what do you guys suggest then?" Snotlout pouted. "Our current system isn't exactly working, is it?"

"We could employ a new rule system where we time everyone and calculate the statistical probability of each advantage they have based on their propensity to cheat and weight the times with-" Fishlegs started.

"Or," Hiccup suggested, interrupting Fishlegs before the twins had their brains overloaded. "We can find a new place to race? Maybe head out a little farther? There's gotta be something nearby that has natural hoops and obstacles we can fly through that we haven't found yet. Only with less chance of it-"

Right then one of the ropes in Snotlout's engineering travesty snapped from the tension of holding up the barrels, which caused something of a devastating chain reaction.

"-doing that," Hiccup finished flatly.

The teens watched in horror as wood snapped and makeshift metal springs shot off in all directions. Fortunately, no one was on the street below, but that didn't make the breakdown of the racing hoop any less dangerous. Just as it was about to fall, one of the ropes whipped out and caught Hiccup by the side of the face and while the force wasn't so much that he was hurt that badly, the shock of it made him fall right of the saddle, at just the right angle for his prosthetic to unhook from its coupling. There was a rush of wind around him and he caught a glimpse of Toothless looking down, panicked, over the edge of the roof as he fell. Expecting to hit the street with probably-survivable-but-very-painful force, he closed his eyes tight, but instead of smacking onto cobblestones he landed on something much softer.

Well it was sort of softer. Marginally softer.

"Snotlout, go take the other ones apart before they kill somebody!" shouted Astrid, right in his ear, and Hiccup opened his eyes to find her face hovering next to his. That rush of air had to have been her and Stormfly launching off the roof to get under him to catch him and now they were hovering in the air and gaining some altitude again. Her arms were wrapped around him, which explained the softer-than-the-ground-but-not-quite-soft thing. Her biceps didn't exactly have the texture of fluffy little clouds.

"Right! Okay! Sorry, ma'am," squeaked the guilty Snotlout in a pitiful voice, flying off to dismantle the others.

"Are you okay?" she asked Hiccup gently, only relinquishing her grip on him enough to fuss over the welt on his cheek with her hand.

"Yeah, uuuh. It didn't hit me that hard. Just surprised me."

"Are you sure? It looks like it's swelling up..."

"I'll just put a cold fish on it and it'll be fine." Good old fashioned Viking medicine, cold fish.

"Maybe you should go to Gothi. What if it knocked your head around harder than you think and-"

"It's not that bad," he insisted and he patted his leg. "I can definitely say I've been through worse."

That was when he caught the look in her eyes and realized the being-through-worse was possibly the cause for concern. Even with all they'd gotten up to since he'd lost his leg, he hadn't really been hurt that badly again. Barring the thing with Alvin, he hadn't ever really been in that much danger with anything they'd done, or the two of them had been in said danger together. Was she afraid of it? Was the idea of him getting hurt so terrible to her that it made Astrid-tough-as-nails Astrid-actually fret? That was some visible fretting going on, he was sure of it. In fact, the way her fingers brushed against his face started to seem a bit less like she was checking for injuries and a bit more like...something else. It seemed a bit more like those feelings that had made her kiss him after he'd taken down a dragon the size of a mountain, a bit like the feelings that'd had the both of them clinging to each other in the dark and the cold of the avalanche.

It seemed a bit more like the feelings the two of them kept dancing around.

"Astrid and Hiccup! Sitting in the tree! Something, something, I can't spell~" Tuffnut started to chant from where he and Ruff where perched on their roof, and Hiccup and Astrid immediately scrambled to maintain some distance between the two of them, a difficult task when they were sitting on the same dragon.

"Uh, thanks. Fooor..."

"No problem," she said briskly. Then for good measure, she punched him in the shoulder almost hard enough to knock him off of Stormfly, but despite the slight pain, it got a smile out of him. The punches on the shoulder were quickly becoming her way of showing affection by showing the _opposite_ of affection.

Astrid let him off on the roof and after reassuring Toothless for a moment, he climbed back onto his dragon, re-docking his foot and rubbing the dragon on the head to get him calmed down from the scare. Flying Stormfly around so that she could get a solid glare in at the twins, Astrid settled on the roof. There was a yowl of mild pain in the distance from Snotlout and the sound of something snapping, followed by, "I'm okay!"

"Hiccup!" called a voice from the ground, before they could head off to watch Snotlout dismantle his unintentional death traps. (It was bound to be entertaining and on a tiny island like Berk, you got your kicks where you could get them.)

Hiccup spotted his father and Gobber down below.

"Hey, dad. Hey, Gobber," he called out.

"Hiccup, what is this mess?" Stoick asked, looking at the mass of wood and rope wreckage on the ground.

"Snotlout is going to clean it up."

"What happened to your face?" Stoick asked with concern.

"Uh...Snotlout happened to it. Don't worry, it looks worse than it is. I'm gonna go put a cold fish on it."

"Did you get Snotlout back for it?" Stoick was of the school of thought that the teens could all handle their own interpersonal conflicts, mainly via lots of mutual hitting. He didn't care how it was settled as long as it was settled at all, without anyone else intervening.

In the distance, Snotlout could be heard yelling, "Ow! The pain!"

Hiccup nodded his head from side to side, his expression half-sympathetic, half-amused. "I think he's currently getting himself back for it, technically speaking. What'cha up to?"

"Everything," Gobber said. "We've got to get more ore smelted to use for steel for making the last of the weapons we lost when the armory went up-"

"The grain harvest has to be brought in so we can get some more ale brewed-"

"Bick and Bock are bickering again and that's got to get settled-"

"And the next fishing run needs to be organized, which means getting Gurk to make new nets, which means getting Ingrid to make more rope-" Stoick broke off into a sigh. "Sometimes it seems like there's not enough time in the day. Even with Thornado making my work easier."

"Technically speaking, there really aren't that many daylight hours because of Berk's latitude, so that's very true," Fishlegs said.

"D'you need help with anything, dad?" Hiccup asked, just a bit hopefully. In the past, his father had rarely trusted him with anything important, but now he at least trusted him with the important things that had to do with the dragons. Maybe he'd let him help with the rest of it.

"None of it has anything to do with dragons, son. You go about your day. If you can help with dinner later, I'd appreciate it, though."

Hiccup's face fell almost imperceptibly. "Sure thing, dad." Turning to the others, he went on, "I'm gonna go get a cold fish and tell Snotlout where we're meeting up. Old Eagle Rock sound good? I'll meet you guys there and then we'll start looking for more places to race."

"Heck yeah, let's go," said Tuffnut as the teens all took to the air.

"You know, Stoick," said Gobber as Hiccup flew off over the rooftops. "Maybe he could have helped with somethin'. You do have the day booked up an' there's only one you to go around."

"Who, Hiccup? Helping with my chief's duties? Are you serious?"

"Well, he's done a good job with the dragons, hasn't he? Stopped Berk from getting attacked anymore, and he's helped them get along with people, for the most part. And we all know Mildew was the one that framed them to get you to send them away so it was clever how he snooped around and figured out how he did it, even if no one can prove it. He's become a mite more responsible since he met that dragon o' his. Maybe he could help sort out the trouble with Bick and Bock or help organize the fishing run while you do everything else."

"He has gotten better, Gobber, but he's still flits around like a hummingbird sometimes. I just can't know for sure that he'll stay focused on any task I give him if it doesn't have to do with dragons or something else that naturally interests him-and that could result in utter disaster and more work for me in the long run."

"I'm just saying, he seems to have come into his own, don't you think?" Gobber said. "Maybe it's time you start trusting him with more responsibility. He's got to take your place someday and how's he to do that if he doesn't get a chance to learn the whole business of chiefing?"

Stoick sighed. "I know, Gobber, I know. He's done so much better for himself in the last few months...but I just don't think he's ready for the big stuff. Not yet. I'm still getting use to the idea of him being...you know. Not...the way he was."

"Okay, well, don't expect me to pick up the slack," Gobber said as the two walked away towards the fields. "Not with what happened the last time and not all the forgework I've got to do. Magnus' parents still haven't forgiven me..."

Where Hiccup was perched with Toothless, hidden on a nearby roof-where he'd ducked with his dragon the moment he heard the two older Vikings start to talk about him-he looked down at his dragon with a crestfallen expression on his face.

"I've done better, haven't I?" he said quietly to his dragon. "Stopped a three-hundred year war, got everyone to get along, outsmarted a crazy Viking-why doesn't he trust me more?"

Toothless let out a low, crooning noise of comfort and Hiccup patted his head again, comforted by his dragon's sympathy and the boundless faith in him he knew was there.

"I guess I should get that cold fish and then go get Snotlout, huh? I'll make sure there's some cold fish in it for you, too."

* * *

"You seem distracted."

"What? What makes you think that?"

"You just lost three races, one of them to Fishlegs, and nearly ran into the same rock formation three separate times. Toothless looks like he's ready to throw you off him just to wake you up."

"Oh," Hiccup responded, then he leaned down and rubbed his fingers against his dragon's scales. "Sorry, bud. Guess I'm just a bit lost in my own thoughts."

Astrid and him were taking a break from racing with their dragons, perched on a rocky outcropping as the others zipped in and out of the crumbling columns of the new aerial playground they'd found. They were a good way away from the island right now, in Berk territory though in seas most of their ships avoided because of the geography. The sun was bright here and the constant breeze made for rather spectacular updrafts that made flying unpredictable and thus about ten times more fun.

"What has you so distracted?" Astrid's voice was touched with the concern of earlier. "Are you sure that rope didn't knock you around too hard...?"

"No, no, Astrid, I'm fine. It's not that, it's-" What was it exactly? "It's just my dad. Things have gotten so much better between us, after I met Toothless, after I saved the tribe. He's trusted me with more and more responsibility, especially when it comes to the dragons. But he still doesn't trust me with anything else, like when it has to do with his work as chief. Most people that are the son or the daughter of their tribe's chief, by the time they're my age, they've already been taught the ropes. They've already been trusted with some heavy responsibility."

He turned to give Astrid a somewhat mournful look. "My dad still doesn't trust me with the big stuff."

"He trusts you with the dragons. That's pretty big," Astrid pointed out.

"Yeah, and it's just the dragons. Nothing else. It's like he trusts me with one of the only things I'm really,_ visibly_ good at, but he won't give me a chance to prove I can be good at the other things, too. How am I supposed to become chief someday if I don't get a chance to learn how to do everything? How am I-" He cut himself off.

"Well?" Astrid prompted.

"How am I supposed to become the next chief if the last one doesn't believe in me?" Hiccup finally said quietly.

Astrid sat there in silence for a little while, mulling it over. Finally, she said, "Maybe you're not supposed to be the next chief."

Hiccup's face fell.

"Maybe_ I'm_ supposed to become the next chief," Astrid went on.

Hiccup grinned. "You know, that probably isn't the worst idea. Maybe if the day comes that I have to take over and I don't know what I'm doing, I can give it over to you. You'd be good at it."

"And that-right there-is why I think that no matter what happens, you'll do what's best for Berk," Astrid pointed out. "Because you're serious, aren't you."

Hiccup looked at her, silent, and then nodded. "You'd be really good at it, Astrid. You understand everyone on the island, you're driven, you're brave, you're responsible-"

"Someday, Hiccup, you'll either know what to do or you won't," Astrid interrupted. "And if you don't, you'll make sure whoever leads Berk does know what they're doing and that they're the best person for the job. No matter what, you'll make sure we're taken care of and you'll do your best by the village and in the end, that's all that matters. I don't know why your dad doesn't believe in you yet, but I do, and I think the important thing is that you believe in yourself."

Hiccup couldn't stop a supremely touched expression from coming over his face. "Astrid, I-"

"Hiccup! Astrid! Come take a look at this!" shouted Snotlout from not far off.

"It's not good!" shouted Fishlegs in a panicked voice.

The two teens immediately took to the air with their dragons, their previous discussion forgotten and made their way to the others with a flurry of air. The others had landed on a small rocky outcropping, barely an island. A few scrubby trees were there but other than that, there wasn't really any life on the island...

At least, there wasn't any life other than the massive dragon that was sprawled on the rocky surface. The Monstrous Nightmare was breathing shallow breaths, obviously unwell, and the uprooted trees and bushes around it made it clear it had crashed there.

Hiccup squinted as he and Toothless went in for a landing. "Is that..."

"I think it is," said Astrid, her breath hitched.

"It's Barbtooth!" Fishlegs insisted next to the dragon. "And he's hurt real bad!"

"C'mon, Barbtooth, stay with us, buddy," Snotlout said mournfully, rubbing the dragon's nose with a gentleness he would have been ashamed to display any other time. This was a family dragon, though, the one that belonged to his father, Spitelout.

Snotlout turned to Hiccup. "Dad was a little worried this morning because he didn't come home last night, but he can be out hunting for a long time sometimes. We think he likes to go out pretty far. If we'd known he was out here, hurt and alone..."

Unhooking his prosthetic leg, Hiccup jumped off Toothless before the dragon had even properly touched down, running over to the Nightmare and looking him over.

"Axe-wound," he said, frowning as he saw a big, nasty cut on the dragon's side, caked with dirt. "He must have tried to fly home after, but he was too far out, too hurt and exhausted, so he crashed here."

Hiccup immediately started directing the others. "Snotlout, I need you to fly home and tell the village. Your dad and my dad need to know to send some dragons to pick Barbtooth up. He's too weak to fly."

"Don't worry Barbtooth, I'll go get help, okay? I'm gonna go get dad. We'll be back for you, big guy," Snotlout insisted with one last consoling pat of the dragon's snout, and then he was off, flying Hookfang back in the direction of Berk as fast as the two could fly.

"Astrid, I need you to soak the cloth you use to clean your axe in the water. He must have set himself on fire, so that helped cauterize the wound, but we have to clean it up a bit more. Ruff, Tuff, I need your water-skins; he's probably really thirsty and needs some fresh water to drink. Fishlegs, see if Meatlug can dive in and get him a fish. He has to be starving after being stuck here without having a chance to hunt this morning."

Hiccup was barely paying attention as Astrid handed him the wet cloth, his eyes locked onto the Nightmare's bright, yellow one, noting that the pupil was contracted in pain and fear.

"It's okay. I promise, big fella, it's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you home."

The dragon made a mournful, crooning noise as Fishleg approached with a fish generously caught by Meatlug and tossed it to the dragon. Though he was weak, the dragon managed to swallow it in one bite. Then he lapped up the water offered by the twins, whose faces were a mirror of concern.

"Okay, everyone, back up. This is going to hurt, so he might set himself on fire instinctually."

"Hiccup-" Astrid said, holding out her hand, about to caution him to be careful, but already he was pressing the cloth against the dragons side, trying to clear out the dirt and muck that was making it hard for the wound to close up properly and making it infected. It wasn't pleasant for Hiccup and it certainly wasn't pleasant for the dragon, who let out a pained screech and set itself on fire. Hiccup rolled away, the cloth still stuck to the dragon's side, but that turned out to be for the best, as the cloth burned away, the muck and infected fluids burned with it. After the fire died down, the wound in the dragon's side was a little cleaner than before, and it settled down, letting out little miserable noises, shooting a look Hiccup's way that was half-accusatory, half-apologetic. Even though it was cleaner now, the cut was still an angry red, and Hiccup placed his now-blistered hand gently against the dragon's side as he looked the cut over again.

"Hiccup, your hands-"

"Don't worry about it," the teen said, eyeing the dragon's wound and ignoring his own. "I'll put some cold fish on it later."

"Who could have done something like this?" said Fishlegs fretfully.

The only Viking on the island that would dare raise an axe to a dragon was maybe Mildew. Even the Vikings that had concerns about the wildness of the dragons no longer held the ill will for them that they used to.

Only Mildew would hurt the dragons and there was no way he could have gotten all the way out here.

"All I know," said Hiccup, thinking carefully "is that it wasn't someone from Berk."

* * *

"The Bog-Burglars," said Stoick, as Hiccup sat there on the steps of the Great Hall, his hands getting an herbal ointment slathered all over them by Gothi. "Their territory is in that direction. Barbtooth must have gotten too close and been attacked by them. They've gotten word of the dragon peace, but that doesn't mean they're willing to adhere to it themselves-they're a distrustful lot, even if they're close allies with us. I'd hoped if the dragons didn't fly out past Berk that it wouldn't be a problem."

"After getting attacked, he must have tried to make it home but crashed before he could get here," said Hiccup, wincing as Gothi silently wrapped his hands up in bandages.

"How's he doing?" Stoick asked. "Spitelout was nearly beside himself when Snotlout came with the message."

"Better, now that he's home," answered Hiccup. "His color's better, his scales aren't flaking as much, and his appetite's improving already. We'll have to keep an eye on him tonight, but It looks like he should heal up okay."

"You did good, son," said Stoick proudly. "If you kids hadn't acted as quickly..."

"I don't even wanna think about it," croaked Hiccup, looking down from where they were sitting. The thought of that poor dragon, dying hurt and thirsty and hungry on a rock in the middle of nowhere, far from his home and from his Viking, made Hiccup sick. Down in the village below, Hiccup could see Barbtooth's tail sticking out of the little shed that had been built months ago next to Spitelout's home, wagging weakly. Spitelout was rolling a barrel of fish in, looking concerned and Snotlout was peeking through the door behind him, making no attempts at all to hide the fear and fondness on his face. Hookfang was behind the teenage Viking, staring into the shed with an expression on his reptilian face that was somehow almost identical to Snotlout's despite the two being entirely different species.

"We have to do something about this, dad. The dragons don't know any better. What if more of them fly too close to the Bog-Burglars' island when they're looking for food? They've learned to spread out so they leave enough fish around the island for us and it could get them killed. We have no way of really teaching them that it's dangerous."

Stoick sighed and pushed his helmet back slightly with a beefy hand, scratching his head.

"We could-"

"And we can't lock them up again."

"I wasn't going to say that," Stoick insisted sharply. "What I was going to say is that we could have a convocation with the Bog-Burglars. Bertha, their chieftainess, she's...well, she's about as hard-headed as a Rockhead Whale but sometimes she can be reasoned with. I've been meaning to go out and have a proper meeting with her since you managed to bring peace between us and the dragons, but it's been one thing after another since then."

"Okay, so that works. You can go, explain the situation better, tell them the dragons won't attack them if they don't attack the dragons, problem solved."

"The only problem is there's too much to be done here. The fishing fleet, the harvest, the squabbles going on-all that has to be settled and it has to be settled soon. I just don't have the time to go meet with Bertha."

Hiccup perked up. "Hey, dad...what if I did it?"

"Took care of the harvest and all that?"

"No, meeting with Bertha! It involves the dragons, doesn't it? Who else could explain to them how to get along with them than the first person that learned to get along with them?"

"Son, diplomacy is a tricky business, even more so with the Bog-Burglars. Bertha can be...aggressive."

"Just send some other people with me. We can handle any aggression. We're Vikings, we're all fluent in aggression."

"It's not that kind of-listen, Hiccup. It's just going to have to wait until I have the time."

"More dragons could be hurt by then, dad. More could _die_." He stared up at his father, plaintively. "And I need to learn to do this. I need you to trust me to learn these things or I'm never going to be able to be a good chief someday. If you don't, I won't be able to do the best I can for Berk."

"What about your hands?" It sounded like Stoick was scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses not to send him.

"It's just surface burns, right Gothi?" Hiccup said to the elder, and she nodded at Stoick in return. "I've gotten worse in the forge. Besides, we can't go by air or we'll spook them. We'll have to go by ship and have the dragons fly along. My hands'll be healed up by the time I get there, especially after Gothi works her magic."

That earned Hiccup a pat on the head from the elder.

There was a long silence as Stoick stared at his son, considering all the possible outcomes and how absolutely, abjectly awful some of them might be. Just for a moment, Gothi's eyes caught his, and the elder tilted her head in a gesture that said 'Well? What are you waiting for? Trust the boy.'

"They're allies with us, right?" Hiccup went on cajolingly. "Maybe contentious ones, but they won't hurt the son of the chief when they know that could mean all-out war, and dealing with them can't be all that different from dealing with people here. I've gotten better at that, haven't I? Especially where the dragons are concerned."

Finally, Stoick sighed, "Alright, alright, but you're not going alone. I'm sending a group along with you and Phlegma is going to be in it. If things start to take a bad turn, let her take over the negotiations. Is that understood?"

Hiccup grinned a broad grin. "I won't let you down, dad."

* * *

"Wahoo! We're going on an adventure!" Tuffnut shouted as the group got their dragons ready to head out.

Hiccup had convinced his father to send his friends along with the groups, reasoning that they were some of the best fliers on the island from having the most experience. Always good to have in a pinch. Not that he expected any pinches to occur, nope, this diplomatic mission was going to be pinch-free.

"It's not so much an adventure as us going somewhere else and me talking a whole lot and then us coming home."

"Talking? You're just going to be _talking_? But that's so boring," said Ruffnut with disappointment.

"Boring is what you're aiming for with diplomacy," Hiccup pointed out.

"You talk a lot at home. You talk _all the time_," said Tuffnut. "Why do you have to go and do it there?"

"Astrid, can you explain the finer points of diplomacy to everybody?"

"Listen up," Astrid said, "Hiccup has to talk them out of hurting our dragons if they stray close to their islands. If we try to fight them, it could lead to all-out war. So he has to talk them into it. It's _not_ that difficult to understand."

"Thank yooou," said, Hiccup, trying to figure out how to hook his bag to Toothless' saddle when it pretty much hurt to press down his fingers on anything too hard. Astrid quickly stepped in to do it for him.

"Guys, this is important," said Snotlout, in a surprising show of support, his tone oddly sober. "Barbtooth could have _died_. What if one of our dragons flies out too close to the Bog-Burglars' island and they never come back?"

There was a surprisingly serious silence that passed through the group of young Vikings, during which, Fishlegs instinctively reached down and hugged Meatlug. It was broken by Tuffnut sighing and saying, "Okay, so we'll go to the boring thing so you can say boring stuff. But only 'cause they're too dumb and uncool to realize how awesome the dragons are, and somebody's got to teach them how to be cool-and who better than me?"

Ruffnut rolled her eyes at her brother, and they all took to the air to move out.

"C'mon guys, we're going to have our dragons fly alongside the ships and island-hop until we're close. Then we're going to leave our dragons on a nearby island while we go on the ship to meet up with the Bog-Burglars. I'll talk them out of killing the dragons and it'll all be fixed up." Hiccup shrugged. "Should be easy enough, right?"

* * *

"I want you to make this as difficult for them as possible." The voice was a ragged one, one that you didn't want growling at you in the dark.

"Are you sure they're coming?"

"Of course they're coming. Your man heard at the trading post that one of the dragons was taken back to Berk injured. Do you think they'll stand for that, soft-hearted, dragon-loving fools that they are?"

"But s-"

"_Ma'am_," the growling voice insisted.

"_Ma'am_, there's no guarantee that they'll send-"

"At this time of year, Berk's grain harvest is due, the ale has to be made, the fishing fleet has to be equipped, and there are a problems all over the island-happens every year like clockwork. Everyone knows that it's when Stoick can't leave the island to meet other chiefs. He won't have time to come himself, but he'll realize he won't have to, especially since the problem concerns _dragons_."

"Understood, ma'am. Very cunning."

"Cunning is what I _do_. Now, do as I told you. Make it as difficult for them as possible and make sure to split the group up as soon as you can."

"Yes, ma'am."

"They're not going to know what hit them. Not until it's far, far too late, and then?" the voice dipped down into a low rumble, "Then Stoick's son will be _mine_."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we going to be there soon?"

"Yes."

"How soon?"

"Much, much sooner if you stop asking when we're going to be there," said Hiccup, rolling his eyes skyward, now regretting the fact he'd brought the others along. The twins were being incredibly impatient, Tuffnut especially, and even though it was going to be a relatively short sea voyage (with the occasional stop for the dragons tagging along to rest), it was longer than short attention spans could tolerate, apparently.

"How does that work?" Tuffnut went on.

"Your open mouth is creating wind resistance that makes the boat go slower," Hiccup lied.

Tuffnut snapped his mouth shut, as Fishlegs considered that and said, "Actually, any wind resistance created by our open mouths would probably be negligible-"

Hiccup just slapped his hand against his forehead and went up to the front of the longboat, the others looking bewildered, with Toothless following along at his heels. Leaning against the railing near the prow, he looked out on the water, a hand unconsciously going to Toothless's head. The sensation of rough scales beneath his fingers was always comforting.

"You're not going to mess it up."

Hiccup looked up to see that Astrid had followed him and was leaning against the railing to the other side of Toothless.

"Are you saying that because you think there's the potential I might mess it up or...?"

"I'm saying it," said Astrid, "because _you _think there's the potential you might mess it up."

"Me? Nooo. I know it'll go fine. I volunteered because I knew it would go fine." Hiccup puffed up his chest. "I'm the chief's son. I'm totally, completely capable of pulling this off. Flawlessly."

Astrid played with one of her wrist wraps with her fingers. "You've been pacing back and forth constantly and you're doing that thing."

"What thing?"

"That thing where you stand there thinking about something, press your lips together for a minute, then go back to thinking about whatever it is-and knowing you, it's less thinking and more worrying."

"Okay, so maybe I'm a little-you were staring at my lips?"

Astrid started in surprise and then focused on untying and retying her wrist wrap as if the continued existence of all of Vikingdom depended on it. "I only noticed when I was just looking at you in general."

"You were staring at me in general?"

"You were pacing right in front of me," Astrid said defensively, glaring just slightly at him, and his expression, which had been starting to tweak up in the slightest twitches of amusement made a quick and very wise transformation to one of complete neutrality. Raising his eyebrows at Toothless, as if to say 'Hoo boy,' his mouth twitched just slightly when he got a chuffing noise of amusement in response from the dragon. Then he turned to look at the water because it seemed safest.

"Anyway, okay, I'll admit it, I'm a little nervous."

"You don't have to pretend you aren't, y'know," she said.

"Except for the part where I'm the chief's son, and forget just being the garden variety son of a chief, I happen to be the son of Stoick the Vast, who eats nervousness for breakfast." He gesticulated wildly with his hands. "I know that because we'll be sitting there at breakfast and I'll be having the salted fish and he'll be pretty much destroying his plate of nervousness, which is usually in a heavy fear sauce and topped with a light dusting of self-doubt. He snarfs it down in all of one minute. I have to talk to these strange people, and I have to seem like I know what I'm doing, and I have to be like him, and I have to do this right-and If I don't, he'll never trust me with something this big again."

Just because he'd asked to do it didn't mean he was looking forward to it. He was terrified he'd do it wrong. But he had to start doing things like this, didn't he? He had to prove he was capable.

"Nervousness isn't the same as fear-"

"Same general family. They're kissing cousins."

"-and even if it was," Astrid went on, "you can't tell me you haven't worked through fear before."

"I don't know..."

"Were you afraid when you and Toothless were fighting the Green Death?"

"I was lucky my bladder was empty or things might have been unpleasant for Toothless."

The dragon pulled a face so comical Hiccup almost laughed.

"Yet you did what you had to do, didn't you," Astrid pointed out. "All I'm saying is that even the greatest Vikings feel fear and that what makes them so great is that it doesn't stop them."

"It's not going to stop me," Hiccup said, jutting out his chin. "I'm going to try my best with this."

"The great Vikings also have friends," Astrid went on, "and if they're nervous about something, they _don't _have to hide it from them."

Hiccup turned to look at the others. Snoutlout was being noogied by Ruffnut and Tuffnut was laughing at him, shouting, "You just got wailed on by a girl!"

Ruffnut let go of Snoutlout and then proceeded to wail on her brother, which led to Snoutlout pointing and laughing this time.

"You sure about that?"

"We're your friends, Hiccup," Astrid insisted.

It dawned on Hiccup that even though they'd accepted him, even though they'd been running around and getting into trouble with him, that he hadn't really been seeing them that way. Not really. They were sort-of his friends. "Friends" was the only word that could be used because "gaggle of people that follow me around but might ditch me at a moment's notice" was too much of a mouthful. They'd been tolerating him, they'd listened when he told them what to do when he needed help with something, but did that make them his friends?

An even better question: Did they _see themselves_as his friends? Did they see him as theirs?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Nervously, Hiccup walked over to them, and said, "Hey, guys, uh, I need to talk to you a minute."

Ruffnut dropped Tuffnut on the deck unceremoniously and they all turned to listen.

"I know I usually have an idea of how to fix something." Confidence worked for Vikings and he never feared they'd think he was ridiculous when he actually knew what he was doing, he just went right into giving orders and they went right into following them to help out. "But I actually have no idea what I'm doing here. I volunteered because dad couldn't go right away and we needed to make sure none of the other dragons got hurt, and just, you know, to prove I could do it. He told me everything I need to know about the Bog-Burglars, but I'm not really sure how to do this right."

"But you're all smart and stuff," Snoutlout pointed out.

"About that..." Hiccup waved indistinctly with his hand. "Have I really demonstrated a history of being good with _people_?"

"Do you mean back when everyone thought you were a miserable failure or after?" Tuffnut asked for clarification. "Because you've been doing pretty good after."

"Thank you." A pause. "I think. But I mean in general. I guess what I'm saying is since I'm not sure about the right way to do this, I might need your help."

Hiccup couldn't resist the urge to close his eyes right then to avoid seeing their initial reactions and waited for the inevitable teasing and laughter at his indecisiveness. It didn't come. Cautiously opening his eyes again, he saw that they were all standing there with earnest expressions on their faces.

"How can we help?" Fishlegs asked.

Darting a quick glance at Astrid (who looked smug), Hiccup looked back to them.

"Okay, a lot of it depends on our reception. They might be friendly, they might not. They're not going to be openly hostile because of the treaty with Berk, but they might not be happy to see us. To start with, we're leaving the dragons on a nearby island with our other ship until it's time to bring them in and show them off-which we're only doing if they're sure they won't attack them. What I need you guys to do is let me do the talking until it's time to teach them about the dragons. When it's time, that's when I need you guys to help out. Fishlegs, I'll especially need you there since you have so much memorized. Then from everybody, I need you to show off how harmless they are to people if they're treated right-and how close you are to them. We need to put emphasis on the fact that they can be dangerous but they won't do it unless provoked. That we're friends with them."

He went on, "Oh, and also we need to make it clear we don't see them as weapons. That they're our friends. Dad said they've already heard about the dragon peace, but they don't know the extent of it. He said we need to make sure we don't scare them into thinking we might use the dragons as weapons to attack them."

"Why would we do that?" Ruffnut asked.

"Because we're Vikings and we have a long and storied history of attacking other people and taking their stuff?" Hiccup pointed out logically.

"It's true," Snotlout said to Ruffnut with a sage-like nod.

"We used to raid the Bog-Burglars and they used to do it to us until my grandpa's time," Hiccup went on. "The only ones that try to raid them now are the Outcasts, though."

They weren't so much with the raiding anymore since the resources on Berk were usually enough for them to survive and they got other things they needed through trade, but those ancestral memories were strong.

Tuffnut raised his hand. "Question. So is what you're saying that we have to come off like wimps that don't take other people's stuff or..."

"Not quite. Dad said we can't show weakness because we don't want them thinking we're pushovers but we just have to make it clear we don't intend on doing anything other than leaving them alone."

"We're not wimps but we have enough stuff so we don't plan on taking their stuff and if we wanted to take someone else's stuff, it wouldn't be their stuff. Got it," Tuffnut said with a decisive nod.

Hiccup swung his arms in front of him, clapping them together. "That's it for now. If anything comes up, we'll change what we're doing as we go."

He really, really hoped he was just overthinking this and that he shouldn't be planning for more possibilities ahead of time. He preferred dealing with dragons-it was easy to figure out what they wanted. People were far more complicated and made it much harder to plan ahead.

"Are you worried about messing this up?" Snotlout asked. As dumb as he could somehow be, Hiccup figured his body language probably gave his nervousness away clear enough for even Snotlout to figure it out.

"Little bit," Hiccup admitted honesty and then waited for the jokes and jibes and teasing remarks that were inevitable, even if they were less bad-natured than they used to be.

"Hey," said Ruffnut, "don't worry about it. It's important, right? We'll do what you need us to do."

"We know this means a lot to you," said Fishlegs. "Since you're probably doing it to prove to your dad you can do it."

"Yeah, seriously," said Tuffnut. "We won't mess this up. Our dragons are depending on us."

"We can't let them get hurt like Barbtooth," Snotlout chimed in.

Hiccup's mind was completely blown. "Right," he said a bit distantly. "Okay. I'm gonna, um, get over my complete and total shock at your capacity for actual responsibility by goin' over and talking to Phlegma to get her on the same page, since she's going to take over if it gets too complicated."

He stumbled off, looking confused.

"I think you just broke his brain," said Astrid with a smile.

"Why?" asked Snotlout.

"He still didn't realize we were his friends. Like, for real. I'm not sure if he does even now. "

Tuffnut rolled his eyes, as he and the others went back to goofing around. "If we weren't his friends, we'd still be giving him wedgies and dunking him in the river. _Duh_. We were stupid to do all that stuff instead of realizing he was secretly cool."

* * *

The dragons protested just slightly over being left on a nearby uninhabited island but with one ship full of Vikings left to watch them and them having flown all that way, they eventually settled down to rest for a bit while the other ship went on. The straits around the Bog-Burglar's marshy islands were dangerous and their ship almost ran aground twice while they navigated them. This was no doubt part of why the Bog-Burglars were so successful repelling invaders-a mass invasion by sea would have been difficult, if not impossible.

By the time they reached the port of the main island, Hopeless, the Bog-Burglars were already amassed in the streets on the off-chance there was an attack imminent (and on the off-chance there'd be a feast or party if there wasn't).

"Sound the horn!" shouted Phlegma and one of their crew took up the ship's signal horn and blew three deep notes that reverberated through the bay. It was a powerful horn, used for sending messages and, once upon a time, to stave off attacking dragons. It was what they would use to signal the other ship to bring the dragons. Those particular tones meant they planned to have a peaceful encounter. Between that and the ship's colors, the Bog Burglars would know an ally was coming and that they didn't plan to attack.

When their ship pulled up to the dock, a party of Bog-Burglars was waiting for them, armed but not hostile. Standing at the head of them was an older man with greying hair, dressed in long maroon woolen tunic. He held a thick, heavy-looking staff. The other Vikings looked much like the Vikings of Berk, although their furs were different-the marshlands of Hopeless were home to giant beavers and muskrats.

"Hail, Vikings of Berk. What business brings you to our island?" bellowed the man as they started to set foot on the dock.

This was it. This was the moment of truth. Hiccup knew he had to make a good first impression.

"This is a diplomatic envoy," said Hiccup. "We know you've gotten word of the dragon peace but we wanted to bring you news of what that entails and see that we come to an amenable agreement about dealings with the local dragons."

"Ah, understood. It's been something we've wanted to have words with your chief about. Where is he?"

"He had important business to attend to on Berk, so he sent me in his stead. I'm his son."

There was a moment that all the Vikings were silent as they looked at Hiccup, the rest of the Berk party disembarking behind him, and then they burst into uproarious laughter. Hiccup's heart made a plunge all the way down to his boots.

"Stoick is such a kidder sometimes. No, really, where is he? Is he hiding on the boat?"

"He's...back home," Hiccup insisted weakly.

"We all know Stoick wouldn't dare trust his son with anything important," said another burly Viking with the bushiest black beard Hiccup had ever seen. "He's made it clear he won't even let him _leave the island_. But to bring another scrawny young lad and pretend it's his son-how old are you, lad? Eleven? Twelve? That's what it would take, I hear, given that Stoick's son is supposed to be a weakling."

"Stoick, come on out!" the old man called to the boat, incredibly amused. "We're on to you! You've already pulled the 'my son is handling things this time' prank before!"

His father was a very dour man when dealing with him and with dealing with matters of importance, but Hiccup knew when he was alone with other Vikings and untroubled, that he sometimes had a sense of humor. It was just something he hadn't seen much of, growing up, something he'd only caught the glancing edges of. He also knew that before he'd met Toothless and proven himself to the village, that he'd been the butt of some of his father's jokes and threats. They rarely happened when he was around to hear, but the Berk grapevine moved rather quickly. When people were griping about being threatened with having to keep an eye on him as an alternative to going on a raid, it wasn't that hard to figure things out. Hiccup had always just tried his best to ignore it.

Apparently, his reputation preceded him, even on other islands. It made sense, didn't it? Alvin had called him "Stoick's Little Embarrassment" but he hadn't had contact with Berk itself for years, meaning he'd heard about it from somewhere else.

"I..."

Hiccup's cheeks burned with shame and he'd never felt more embarrassed in his life.  
Actually, never mind that, he had felt more embarrassed on several occasions, but that didn't actually make things better-in fact, they actually made them a little worse.

"I, uh..."

Hiccup suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, small but strong, and knew without looking that it was Astrid's.

Taking in a deep breath, he lifted up his chin, and said in a voice more loud and forceful than any he'd ever managed, a voice not unlike the one he used when taking a Monstrous Nightmare to task for lighting themselves up in a place like the Great Hall, "I'm Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, son of Stoick the Vast, and I'm here to speak with your chieftainess, Bertha. This _isn't_a joke."

There was a moment that they went silent, seemingly taking him seriously, and then they burst into laughter again.

Hiccup closed his eyes tight so that he didn't have to look any of the other Berk Vikings in the eye and turned on his heel to hightail it back to the boat. "Looks like Phlegma's handling this, have fun guys."

Astrid's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"How dare you?" she called out. "How dare you treat the son of a chief this way? Even if you think you're familiar enough with our chief to make jokes like this, to make them when he's not here and to speak of his flesh and blood that way shows disrespect."

The laughter started to die down as the Bog-Burglars realized their mistake and Phlegma stepped forward now. "Stoick wants his son to gain more experience in diplomacy with our allies. You will afford him the same respect you would his father or it will be taken as a slight against our chief _and _our tribe."

Now the laughter stopped and all the Vikings there had the good grace to look awkward and embarrassed.

The older man turned to the Berk Vikings and said as smoothly as he could under the circumstances, "You, ah, you have our deepest apologies for the misunderstanding." He coughed awkwardly. "Please, come to our Great Hall and let us welcome you to our shores properly."

The Berk party started to move up the dock to follow them. As soon as they passed, Hiccup moved to go back to the boat, but Astrid was still gripping his shoulder.

"You are not hiding on the boat the entire time we're here," she said dryly.

"Phlegma can handle it," Hiccup said without looking at her, trying futilely to pull against her grip. "I was stupid to think I could and I'm pretty sure diplomacy only works right when you're not reducing the other side to hysterics every time you open your mouth."

"So you have a bad reputation on other islands. Whoop de doo."

"A bad reputation that, apparently, my own father is responsible for. What was I thinking, trying to pull something like this off?"

"They're farther away so they don't know what you did yet." She whipped him around to face her, so that they were almost nose to nose. "When they do, when they get the full story, they'll listen."

"They still see me as Hiccup the Useless."

"Then make them see who you _really _are."

Their mouths were really, really close Hiccup suddenly realized. Like, _really _close. Astrid seemed to realize it too because she suddenly backed away, letting go of his shoulder at last.

"Now, come on. They're leaving without us."

Sighing, Hiccup followed along, trying to shake the dread now curling up in his gut.

He had a sinking feeling that this was going to be miserable.

* * *

He was right. It was miserable. Oh, they'd stopped laughing but it didn't help that it seemed like they wanted to every time he said something important, as if the very idea of him having important things to say was hilarious. He was regretting ever coming-and regretting that whole thinking-he-could-be-chief someday thing, too. Clearly, he was insane for thinking it was a possibility and as soon as he got back to Berk, he was going to his father, tendering his resignation as chief's son, and insisting someone like Astrid be nominated. She'd be a good chief's son. The two of them could go out and play a good ol' game of axe-catch and everything, just like his dad had always wanted.

Still, as the saying went, when you were knee deep in the dragon dung, it wasn't the time to try to put your boots on. What was started was started and he had to make the best of it, relying on Phlegma if he couldn't handle it.

The old man had turned out to be named Bong the Majestic, which was the strangest name Hiccup had ever heard but he was apparently not originally from around the island, or from any other islands nearby, for that matter. Apparently, about a year before, he'd floated in half-dead on a small rowboat and been taken in by the islanders. He'd been healer of some renown and the ship he'd been traveling in had been wrecked in a storm. After getting Hopeless through a particularly virulent winter, they had largely accepted him as one of their own-although it was clear they didn't see him as a Viking. He was treated with a great deal of respect by the Bog-Burglars but Hiccup noticed there was the occasional comment along the lines of "not that you'd know, what with not being a Viking" and every time something like that was said a vein at the man's temple would throb.

Interesting.

Bong has apparently gotten into Bertha's good graces and after her second-in-command had died in a tragic accident in the bogs, he'd been made second-in-command.

"When can I have an audience with your chieftainess?" Hiccup asked him over the noise of the particularly rowdy feast that had been prepared in their honor after hearing a bit about the man's background.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Bong explained. "Just a month ago our dear chieftainess was out on a raid and the ship was lost in a storm. The entire crew perished, but she managed to swim from island to island and get back to Hopeless. Unfortunately, even though she survived, she took ill and has been sick ever since. She keeps to her house on the hill so as to not spread the sickness to anyone else in the village."

"She's got herself barricaded in there," said the bushy-bearded Viking-Og-ruefully. "Iglug tried to go in to see her and she tossed an axe at his head before he was even though the door. She means business, our chieftainess. Doesn't want to start a plague. If Bong hadn't been in to see her, we wouldn't even be sure it was her-he's the only one she lets in and out."

"Don't be silly, Og," said Iglug. "Of course it was her. It was dark but I still saw her. Just as hairy as ever."

"After being a healer for so many years, I seem to have developed a hardiness that prevents me from taking ill very easily. It's the only reason she lets me see her and even then she doesn't allow me to come close. So I do what I can for her and relay her orders to the rest of the tribe."

"Poor Bertha," said Og shaking his head. "The whole tribe's hoping she can beat it in the end-like she's beaten everything else she's ever come across. She's got us through many a harsh winter, she has."

They clearly loved their chieftainess, enough that they respected her wishes and steered clear. That meant, though, that they'd invested a lot of trust in her messenger.

"So you're the only one that sees her?" Hiccup asked Bong. "They really must trust you, if they trust that you're passing her orders along exactly the way she wants."

He didn't say it in a distrustful way-more as if he admired the man's character, that he could gain the trust of an entire tribe.

"Oh, aye," said Og, slapping his hand against Bong's back so hard some of his ale sloshed  
out of his mug. "Bong's a life-saver, for true. Even if he can't lift an axe to save his life."

There went that vein throbbing at his temple again, even if Bong's face stayed in a careful expression of a smile.

"I do what I can. How could I turn a blind eye to the sick and suffering?"

"Speaking of the sick and suffering, we need to get down to business," said Hiccup. The meal was almost over and now it was time to do what they came here to do. "There's a dragon back in our village that's recovering from getting injured."

"What are you even thinking, giving it the chance to?" Og asked, laughing.

"You've heard about the dragon peace, yes? What have you heard?"

"Just that the Berk Vikings miraculously found a way to stop the dragons from attacking and that one of your tribesman was responsible for conquering them."

"Okay, we really need to work on the wording of these things _before_they get turned into wild rumors. It wasn't so much conquering as training."

"Training? As in, someone tamed one?"

"Not tamed, they're never tame, really, but they've been taught to not attack. The only reason they were raiding us all for food was because they've been plagued for generations by a massive dragon on their island, one nearly the size of a mountain. It insisted on being brought food or it killed the other dragons and it was able to control them like a queen control its hive. They were so terrified by it that they were willing to face the threat of Vikings if it meant they could bring back enough food. Facing us was only possible death, but not feeding it was suicide."

The Vikings were now all sitting up and listening to Hiccup, utterly transfixed.

"Once the giant dragon was killed, they became a lot more docile. As long as they don't get attacked, they don't attack us, and we actually have them living with us in our village now. They don't need that much to eat to get by-most of what they stole before wasn't for themselves."

"You can't be serious," said a red-haired female Viking that had been introduced as Ingrid earlier. "They're really able to live in peace?"

"They're good for herding the sheep, they start our fires-and help us put out ones if we need to, and they're great companions. Very affectionate and very loyal. They're still wild and need to be treated with respect but without the queen, they're nowhere near as hostile as they used to be."

"But who killed the queen?" asked Bong.

Hiccup looked distinctly uncomfortable. He was proud of what he and Toothless had done but he didn't exactly want to deal with them not believing him.

"I did. Well, we did. Me and my dragon."

The Vikings looked skeptical, though they didn't say anything rude this time. Still, Hiccup wished he could hide behind something.

"And...people _saw _you do it?" inquired Bong innocently, with the not-so-subtle implication that maybe they thought he'd duped his own tribe into believing a lie.

"Hiccup and Toothless killed it in front of the whole village," insisted Phlegma, chiming in to back him up. "They saved us all."

"You should have seen the explosion!" shouted Snotlout enthusiastically, forgetting he wasn't supposed to talk.

"Yeah, it was like: KABWOOOSH!" added Tuffnut, throwing some of his food in the air like his plate had just exploded.

"But...you?" said Og, looking Hiccup over. "I heard the dragon conqueror was-"

"-ten feet tall with the strength of a dozen men?" Hiccup interrupted. "People really need to learn to fact-check."

"My word, but you're..." started Bong.

"He's _what_?" asked Astrid, her voice practically dripping acid.

Bong quickly self-corrected and managed some diplomacy, "You're in miraculously good shape for someone who's fought a dragon the size of a mountain, a task that would daunt any Viking. It's incredible that you came back in one piece."

"Technically."

"Technically?"

Hiccup tapped his leg, loud enough for the metallic noise to echo just slightly through the hall, which had grown quieter as they talked.

"Technically it was one piece-there was just a big chunk of it missing."

At that, the hall grew deathly quiet. You did not show a Viking disrespect over a limb lost in battle.

"During the fight with the Green Death, my dragon Toothless shielded my body with his own and saved my life, even if he couldn' t save my leg. That's why we're here. The dragons need to be shown respect and we need to make sure the local tribes understand that some of the dragons passing through belong to us. They're our companions. The dragon that was injured belonged to my father's second-in-command and he'd just strayed too far while hunting."

"We're to still kill any dragons on sight. Bertha's orders," Og said. "Mind, they're different from the ones she gave when she got word of the dragon peace. We were told to leave the dragons alone unless they were bothering us but then she changed her mind when she got back last month. Makes you wonder if a dragon was more why her ship was wrecked than a storm."

"I'm afraid," said Bong, "that Bertha's orders still stand. She's quite willful."

"Then I need to talk to her."

"That just won't be possible."

"Shouldn't you be telling her that we're here and what we're asking?" Hiccup pointed out. "Rather than deciding for yourself?"

Bong looked stricken. "Yes. Yes, of course."

"Then let's go speak to your chieftainess."

Bertha's house looked out over all the village much like Hiccup and his father's did, only the windows were all drawn shut and overshadowed with window drapings of some kind. It was all a little bit strange, Hiccup thought, and his natural curiosity had him wanting to do more than scratch the surface.

Bong was in and out rather quickly-almost too quickly, Hiccup thought-and he insisted that Bertha refused to change her mind about the dragons.

"Didn't she at least consider?" asked Og. "If the dragons really will leave us alone if we don't attack, we'll be much better off leaving them alone, won't we?"

"You know how stubborn she can be," said Bong, thunking his very heavy-looking walking stick down in the dirt decisively. "I'm afraid that's that."

"I'm going to go in and see her," said Hiccup, his fists curling in determination.

"Lad, you'll be sure to take ill if you do, especially with your...constitution."

"Seeing as I survived this," Hiccup said, gesturing to his leg, "I think my constitution's probably fine."

He patted Bong on the arm and walking past him to the front steps of Bertha's house, stepping over a mud puddle at the bottom. Knocking twice and getting no answer, Hiccup slowly inched the door open.

"Bertha, this is Hiccup, the son of Stoick the Vast, and I've come to seek an audience with you about some important matters between our trib-"

He only got the briefest glimpse in the dark of a massive breastplate, furs, and quite a bit of hairiness before the chieftainess screamed, in a voice that was extraordinarily deep and hoarse and yet very shrill, "GET OUT!"

Then she threw a small axe at Hiccup's head, one he only barely ducked in time, stumbling backwards out the door. Falling back clumsily, he slipped down the steps and landed right in the mud puddle, to the raucous laughter of the Bog-Burglars. The door snapped shut and he was left sitting there covered in mud and humiliated in front of the chieftainess' door.  
"Told you she was stubborn, lad," said Og, in between his belly laughs. "Our Bertha, she doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do."

So, that was it. They had a chieftainess that refused to see anyone, let alone countermand her previous orders, and a village of Vikings that thought he was joke.

"Do you mind if we stay a day or so to prepare for the voyage home?" Hiccup asked Bong, shaking the mud from his arms.

"Certainly. You are welcome to all the hospitality our village can provide."

"You're giving up?" Astrid said, moving in close so that she wouldn't be overheard.

"No, but something...strange is going on here," Hiccup said back, just as quietly. "We need to regroup and we need a _plan_."

* * *

The Berk Vikings decided to meet on the ship to regroup so that they could have some privacy.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Astrid, arms crossed.

"We send the signal to bring our other ship but not the dragons-we can't risk the Bog-Burglars attacking them. Most of you will go off with them back to our dragons while some of us stay here. Fishlegs, Astrid, and Ruffnut, I want you to head back to our dragons and get them up in the air to search the surrounding islands and see if any dragons have any nesting places or hunting territory they've claimed. If we can't change Bertha's mind, the best we can do is try to scare them off from roosting around here."

"And what are the people who are staying here in Hopeless going to do?" asked Snotlout.

"Try to find out what's going on. Phlegma and I can keep trying to get an audience with Bertha, but there's something that doesn't feel right. I don't trust Bong. Did you see how fast he was in and out of Bertha's cabin with an answer? It's like he didn't even explain what was going on. Something's not right and if there's something wrong here, it might affect the dragons and Berk, so we need to get the bottom of it before we wear out our welcome."

"Okay, so snoop around, find out stuff. Got it," said Tuffnut. "I can totally do that."

"Just try not to make them suspicious," Hiccup said, trying to wipe the mud off his tunic. "This is gonna take bit of subtlety."

His tunic didn't seem to be cooperating, but fortunately he'd brought a change of clothes. It never hurt on a sea voyage to have something dry to change into below deck.

His leggings and under-things were off and he was already taking his tunic off before he realized that he hadn't made it clear what he was going down below to do. The others probably thought he'd just popped off to grab something, which probably explained the footsteps of someone else stomping below deck with him.

Well, he'd better just get dressed quickly then...

"Hiccup, just one thing, if the dragons are nesting, what do we do with the eg-"

He froze where he stood, eyes wide, and then, blushing, quickly moved to make very strategic use of the tunic to cover things that really ought to stay covered in the presence of impolite company.

Astrid also froze, her eyes also wide.

On Berk, as a rule, you always wore clothes. Always. Unless you were washing up, which the Vikings of Berk didn't actually do a lot of and which was certainly not done in public. If you weren't always covered, something was liable to freeze and snap off, which was generally a thing you wanted to avoid when the human body was concerned. That meant that a lot of finer points about human anatomy other than your own were left to the imagination.

Astrid now had a lot less she had to imagine.

"Astrid!" Hiccup squeaked out indignantly.

It took a moment for the expression on her face to change. Instead of the embarrassment or panic that was typically there in moments like this that happened between them, the corner of her mouth turned up in a smug, little grin and she raised a single eyebrow. It was as if, this time, she'd been too shocked to be embarrassed about the situation and had bypassed it and gone straight on to amusement.

"Wow, you have to hold some kind of record for freckles."

The only response Hiccup had to that was a spluttering noise at first, but then he managed to get out, in a squeaky voice, "How is this at all fair? If this was me walking in on you, I'd be trying to dislodge an axe from my face right now."

Astrid completely ignored him, staring, fascinated, her voice amused, "I didn't even know someone could_ have_freckles in some of the places you have them."

"Generally speaking, amusement isn't the reaction someone wants to get the first time they're seen with their shirt off," Hiccup said, rolling his eyes upward towards the cabin roof. "Just for the record."

"I'm not amused-well, okay, I'm amused. I just-I don't know. It's not that different from what I pictured, but there's just this _explosion _of freckles I didn't even think was possible."

They both froze, staring at each other, as her words sunk in.

"You, uh, you pictured me without-"

"I didn't say that!"

"That would be what's implied by saying you pictured me in any state other than one of dress." Now it was Hiccup's turn to look a little amused.

"You know that thing you said about having to dislodge an axe from your face...?"

"Hey, hey, I'm the one one that was walked in on and is being viciously ogled right now, in a way that I can't get dressed without undergoing an even worse ogling. I could get you_ exiled_for the sheer brutality of the ogling you're committing right now. "

"Oh, like you're not enjoying it."

"I'm not. At all," Hiccup said, entirely unconvincingly, wondering why that wasn't the truth. "Not even a tiny bit."

"Really," said Astrid, crossing her arms. "Not at all?"

"Who could?"

"I could," Astrid suddenly said in a voice that could only be described as sultry, and she walked closer to Hiccup, who pressed himself up against the bulkhead, eyes wide with shock. "Bet you didn't even consider that the times you thought about me without my clothes on."

"I-I-well, uh, no, I didn't really think you were the type to-"

"Ha!" Astrid suddenly burst out, jabbing her finger victoriously at his scrawny chest. "So you've pictured me, too!"

"I have not!" He added, irritated and frowning, "You just made up the other part to get me to say that, didn't you."

"Now we're even," she insisted.

"Technically, the only way we'd be even was if you-"

"Stop that thought _right there_," she said in a dangerous tone.

"Stopping," Hiccup said, quickly pressing his lips closed tightly.

"Anyway, we're even, except for the part where I don't have a gross, teenage boy brain like yours. I don't...think like that."

Hiccup's face fell slowly and then he muttered, "Alright, fine, we're even and you've had your fun." He squirmed uncomfortably. "Are you finished?"

Now Astrid looked taken aback by the tone of his voice. "Yes. Sorry. I was just-"

"Having a laugh. 'Ha ha, Hiccup's got a perverted brain like every other teenage boy in the world.' Hilarious stuff, I know, but I'd really like to put my pants back on before one of the others wanders down here and decides to make a whole party of the thing. Because they would."

Astrid turned around wordlessly, but didn't leave yet, and Hiccup quickly got into his change of clothes, muttering, "I'm dressed."

"Hiccup, I wasn't trying to-"

"It's fine." It wasn't. It really wasn't and even he wasn't sure why he was so upset all of a sudden.

Maybe it was because she'd walked over to him, looking like she-like she wanted him, which was something he'd hoped for. It was something he'd dreamed of: that he'd see the feelings he didn't have names for reflected in her eyes someday. Who didn't want that? Who didn't want someone that cared about them and wanted them the same way? Even though he was young, he wanted to know that he at least had a _chance _of that in the future.

For her to act that way and then laugh it off as a joke, as if it was something that would never be real, thaut was humiliating. At first, he'd thought they'd been flirting but that made it clear she was just amused at his expense. And he knew, if she had really tried to picture him, she must have been trying to figure out if it was something she'd be able to tolerate. She had to have been thinking: 'Exactly how ugly is he under there?'

For a moment, he considered that maybe that wasn't true, that maybe the laughter and jeering comments of the Bog-Burglars were still a little too fresh in his mind, but then she punched him in the shoulder and said, awkwardly, "Don't worry, this is something we'll laugh about later."

Yeah, that was _totally_ what he wanted to hear.

* * *

Astrid hated feeling awkward. As a rule, she always wanted to prove herself and tried to be in control of any situation she found herself in, which was why she'd tried to take control of the situation down in the ship's hold. She was still working out why it hadn't exactly gone the way she wanted it to. Oh sure, she'd managed to sidestep total mortification for herself but in the end the entire encounter seemed to have gotten to Hiccup somehow and she wasn't sure exactly how. They'd been joking, hadn't they? Laughing it off? Even, well...flirting. Sort of. Then something had happened and it wasn't funny to Hiccup anymore and she still couldn't figure out why. Sometimes she could read him like an open book but other times, that book may as well have been chained shut, and he did this strange thing where he closed off and went quiet. That was what had happened down there, the book had snapped shut right in her face and quite possibly the runes inside had spontaneously turned into another language.

It was just one of those Hiccup mysteries, one of the things she sometimes didn't understand, which happened because he was so _complicated_. She was, by no means, unintelligent, but the way she thought was simple. See problem, apply axe to it, problem solved. Hiccup thought circles around everyone else and around every problem. Sometimes he thought himself into knots and if he ever talked about feelings, like the ones that came up with his dad, it was clear they were layered and complicated, in ways they could never be with most Vikings.

If other Vikings were bludgeons, Hiccup was a siege weapon with complicated moving parts. You knew what a siege weapon did, enough to appreciate it, but it didn't always mean you understand how all the bits worked, even if they were beautiful in their intricacy.

Not that she thought he was beautiful or attractive or anything like that! Nope. Even though she'd kissed him a few times. And clung to him after the avalanche. Even though she'd come to his rescue on occasion and and confided in him and gotten warm feelings in her gut whenever he confided in her.

For someone used to plowing through every problem with an axe-swing and a sharp blow to the head, it was just a bit too complicated, especially when she was concerned about how she looked-and about who and what she was. She wanted to be a good Viking, wanted to grow up into a great warrior, someone that the rest of Berk could look on with pride. She wanted to be strong enough and tough enough to protect her people and become the kind of Viking she'd always dreamed she'd grow up to be. Even though it was never as much progress as she wanted it to be, due to hard work and discipline, she was making considerable progress as she got older.

Hiccup threw a hatchet in the works.

How could she be strong if sometimes he said things that made her weak in the knees? How could she be tough if her heart fluttered and her stomach felt like it was turning to soggy porridge whenever he smiled at her? She didn't know how to deal with those feelings. She didn't know what to do with the urge to be close to him when every Viking instinct she had told her that she should be punching people instead of pushing their hair out of their eyes. She didn't know how to deal with feeling just slightly jealous during those times he spent a whole week preoccupied with the dragons rather than talking to her.

Astrid didn't know the answer to any of these questions, she didn't know how to ferret out this problem and fix it like she fixed any problem she saw, and she had the strangest feeling she needed to figure out how to do it soon or this _thing_-whatever it was-between her and Hiccup might not keep going, and for the first time in her life, she wanted it to. She wanted to have a _thing_ going on. She just wished it was easier to figure out what exactly it was and how exactly it was supposed to _work. _

These thoughts and more occupied Astrid's thoughts as she, Ruffnut, and Fishlegs canvassed the island around the Bog-Burglar's main island, the three of them careful to stay far out of range so that they weren't likely to be seen and attacked. If there were any dragons that had taken to roosting around the islands, they weren't likely to stick around near the occupied ones anyway so their search mostly took them to unoccupied ones on the outlying areas of their territory. Without Snotlout there to be annoying, Tuffnut there to argue with Ruffnut, and without Hiccup calling directions or leading them into something, the three of them were actually somewhat quiet as they undertook the task at hand.

Fishlegs apparently couldn't stop himself from commenting on it, "It is so weirdly quiet."

Ruffnut laughed. "That's because my stupid brother isn't here to open his big mouth." Then she stopped laughing and pointed, "Hey, what's that down there?"

There was a spot down on the island below that looked scorched. It was a small area, not unlike the space a dragon might burn on the ground to sleep but it was large enough to be spotted from where they were in the air.

It was time to actually pay attention to the task at hand, thought Astrid, and it felt much better to focus on doing what needed to be done rather than all the other fluffy stuff. She'd have to work it out later.

"Start heading down," she said, eyes narrowing. "We need to go in for a closer look."

* * *

Hiccup decided that concentrating on the task at hand was a good distraction from all the things that were confusing him right now, so he did it with all the bull-headed enthusiasm that was his usual go-to method when the only option he had to fix a problem was to throw himself at it repeatedly. So far, in his subtle efforts at gaining information, he'd found out a bit about the island-everything from the bad winters Bertha got them through to hearing a very thorough explanation of how the island's great signal horn worked.

"So, Bong, he's a character, alright," said Hiccup, taking a seat near Ingrid with a mug of mead. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like him before, but then I've only ever met other Vikings. Where's he from, anyway? I know he said he washed up here, but where was he from before that?"

Ingrid side-eyed him. "Why are you scouting for information?"

"Wha-me? Wha-why would I be scouting for information about anything? What in the world would give you that idea?"

"Because the daft lad with the flat nose came by earlier, told me he was scouting for information on Bong and asked me if I thought he was evil."

Hiccup facepalmed. "Subtlety. I told them it would take-of course. they probably don't know what the word 'subtlety' even _means_."

"Why do you want to know so much about Bong, lad?"

What would his father do in a situation like this? That was fairly easy to answer-he'd tell the truth and act like the information was his business in the first place.

"Bertha gave the order to stop killing the dragons at first, right? Then she got shipwrecked, came back, and took the order back-but only Bong has seen her. I mean, r_eally_seen her. And our dragons-our friends-could wind up in trouble if they stray too close to your lands. They don't understand how our territory works and it's difficult teaching them to stay away. This would all work out best if I could just talk to Bertha, but she won't talk to me and...and something just doesn't feel right here. I'm the chief's son, my father's proxy, and I feel like if something was going on with another chief of an allied tribe my father would want to get to the bottom of it before he left. Partly to make sure the other chief was okay-chief to chief, partly to make sure that his allies would be fine when he left, and partly to make sure none of it could come back to bite Berk in the butt. That's not too unreasonable, is it?"

That last bit was said with just a touch of worry, of concern over whether or not he was doing his job right, and that was what seemed to do the trick. Ingrid's expression softened somewhat. Self-doubt was not an attractive trait in a Viking, but Hiccup supposed it make him just seem harmless rather than someone who was prying into the affairs of another tribe to cause harm.

"Ach, well..." Ingrid leaned in close, looking to make sure Bong was nowhere near. "You're not the only one who's suspicious, lad, but none of us are sure of what to make of it all either. Could be Bertha's just gone off her head as she recovers. Could be something a little more..."

"Nefarious?"

"You do like those big words of yours, don't you."

"Sorry."

"Suspicious, though, yes. I would give my father's axe to know what goes on in those conversations between Bong and Bertha."

"I think I'm going to try to talk to her again."

"On your head be it," said Ingrid. "Her axe, I mean. Will be on your head. Well, more like in it when you really get down to it..."

"Here's what I'm thinking. Say I go and try to talk to her again. Say I put emphasis on the seriousness of the situation. Maybe that won't be enough to convince her to talk to me but, don't you think your chieftainess refusing to talk over a serious matter with a representative of another tribe, someone speaking for their chief, is something you could maybe use as really good justification just to check in on her. You never know if someone's delirious with fever, right? Maybe Bong's completely trustworthy and trying his best to obey his chief like a good Viking does, but she's just not in the right state of mind to be making them. Nothing wrong with checking in if that seems a possibility, right? Especially with just cause?"

Ingrid eyed Hiccup sidelong. "You're a slippery one, aren't you. Like a skinny little eel."

She sounded more impressed than anything else.

"Not so much like an eel when you get down to it. Dragons tend to like me way more than eels."

"That's quite the feat."

"I really did do it. All of it. Everyone on Berk has a dragon now and everyone saw the fight with the Green Death."

"I wasn't casting your claims into doubt, lad."

"...oh."

"Not much like your father, are you," said Ingrid. "Now there's a man with so much confidence he practically leaves a trail it wherever he goes, like a snail."

"Yeah, that's my dad," Hiccup said weakly. "Anyway, thanks for the information. I promise I'll try my best to help the situation."

"Just mind yourself. Bertha's got herself a temper. Even for a Viking."

Tempers did come standard for Vikings so it made sense she felt the need to clarify.

"I got the hint when she threw an axe at my head," Hiccup said with a half-grin, taking his mug and walking away.

Now, how exactly should he go about this? What he'd do, usually, was find out more information and try to go at the problem sideways and find the solution no one thought of. He'd prod at the mystery until he understood what was going on, then act, sometimes sneakily.

What his father would do, however, was barrel in and make things work out for the best.

He was supposed to be the chief's son, wasn't he? He was doing this to prove he could do chief's work. That meant he was going to do this the chief's way.

* * *

It was the wreckage of a ship, of that Fishlegs was certain. There were the remnants of a dragon-shaped figurehead (based stylistically on a Monstrous Nightmare, as far as he could tell) half-buried in the sand. This was what they'd spotted in the air and now they were on foot, investigating it.

"It's definitely recent," he said, taking a look at the wood, kneeling to run his fingertips over it to see how much moss had accumulated. "There'd be more damage from the elements otherwise."

"So there's a chance this is where Bertha shipwrecked," said Astrid.

"It's not that far from the island," Ruffnut pointed out. "She swam from island to island to get back, right? I could totally swim that."

That meant that Bertha could, too.

"Look at the oar holes. The wave pattern carved around them," said Fishlegs. "I noticed in the harbor, almost all of Hopeless' ships have the same carvings around the holes for their oar handles. So this has to be one of their ships, and judging from the size of the figurehead it was a large ship."

"Like the kind of ship a chief would choose to sail on," said Astrid.

The three of them poked at the wreckage a bit, curious.

"Uh, what are looking for?" Ruffnut asked. "Are we looking for something?"

"There's just...something I need to see. Hiccup is suspicious of the whole situation with Bertha, right? Bong said that she said her ship was destroyed in a storm, so the wreckage would look like it was destroyed in a storm. I just want to see if the story holds up."

"Astrid," said Fishlegs as he turned over a part of the wreckage that looked like the side of the ship. His stomach felt like the contents in it had instantly turned into yak nog. "Astrid, you need to come look at this."

Astrid came over and bent down next to him, looking at what he was pointing to. "Is that what I think it is?"

"What is it?" Ruffnut said, looking at what the other two were looking at.

Fishleg pointed. "Does that look like something a storm would do?"

"No way, is that-" Ruffnut started.

There were grooves in the wood, grooves that looked like claw marks and not the marks from dragon claws.

"The marks from a grappling hook. If this is Bertha's ship, it wasn't shipwrecked," said Astrid, her face scrunching up into a scowl. "It was attacked. Which means-"

Her eyes went wide with realization and she immediately darted for Stormfly, causing the other two to instinctually run to their own dragons.

"-which means the others could be in danger. We have to get back and let them know what we found. Either Bertha or Bong are lying and we don't know why. Hiccup's probably nosing around into this right now and if something bad is going on, it could get him and the others into trouble. Knowing Hiccup, it'll be the _worst_ kind of trouble."

* * *

"I need you both to stick nearby and keep watch. I need to know if someone else is coming and I also don't know how Bertha will react. I might wind up in a lot of trouble. Or, you know...decapitated."

"And how are we supposed to help with that?" Tuffnut asked.

"Someone needs to bring my head back home."

Tuffnut considered that carefully. "If that happens, can I keep it?"

"Bring it home for burial, not collecting," Hiccup clarified.

"It's just that it'd be really cool to have a severed head."

"I know, wouldn't it?" Snotlout chimed in. "I've wanted one since I was three."

"No one gets to keep my head, which hopefully won't be severed at all, but if it is, I want it to be taken home for burial," Hiccup said, walking towards the house and then doubling back. "And if you try to keep it, I'll come back to haunt you as a draugr."

"Aw man. No fair!" said Tuffnut.

Hiccup started walking toward Bertha's house again. "Remember, the signal is slamming a stick into the base of that torch once someone is coming, twice if it's Bong. And don't wander off. I don't know what's going to happen and I might need your help. If I'm not out within a half hour, knock and pretend you need me for something."

"Yeah, yeah," said Snotlout dismissively, crossing his arms. "We are all _over_this watch thing. Go do your boring talking."

The door was open just a crack and Hiccup knocked twice, saying quietly, "Bertha? It's Hiccup again. Stoick's son?"

No answer. Taking a deep breath, he cautiously pushed inside.

Back outside, Tuffnut and Snotlout stood watch and as soon as Hiccup went into the house, they started to get bored.

Then Tuffnut looked up the street a bit and saw two very good-looking young Viking ladies staring back at him and Snotlout. They giggled and started to walk away.

Nudging Snotlout to look over at them, he started to walk away.

"Hey, aren't we supposed to keep watch?" Snotlout pointed out.

"Did he say we couldn't keep watch over _there_?"

"No…"

"So why don't we keep watch over there?"

Snotlout thought about it for about half a second. "Sounds like a plan that's mostly the same plan as the plan we're supposed to be following to me."

Then he and Tuffnut left their posts, something they'd come to regret later with an intensity that neither of them even knew they were humanly capable of.

* * *

"Bertha?" Hiccup said quietly, edging into the main room of the cabin. "I'm sorry to just…uh, barge in like this, but—"

It was dark in here. The fire had burned down to just a few embers.

"But I really need to talk to you," said Hiccup, drawing himself up. "This is too important to let go, and-it's actually pretty cold in here. I'm going to get your fire going again. This cold can't be good for you."

Taking the poker next to the fire, he stirred it and put another log on until the fire was kicked up a little bit. There, that was better. If she really was that sick, she shouldn't be stuck in the cold, right? If not...

"Anyway," Hiccup said to the large lump he now saw curled under blankets on the bed. "I really…need to talk to you. I know my father would want me to see if you're okay and this concerns the safety and well-being of your tribe, too."

Bertha sighed and whispered in a scratchy voice, "It's just been so hard since I've taken ill. I leave most of it to Bong."

"I understand but…your tribe needs you," said Hiccup. "If you can't go out there to help them, you could at least let the healthier ones in to see you, if they're willing to risk it. At least until you're well."

"Perhaps you're right," whispered Bertha.

Hey, progress! Maybe he wasn't so bad at this diplomacy thing, after all.

Hiccup took a step closer and in the flickering light of the fire, he saw an unusual amount of hair on the woman, but hey, the tribesman here had said she was, uh, a particularly hairy lady, right?

"Your father sent you?" whispered Bertha and she turned, just slightly, her eyes glittering in the light of the fire, her blanket pulled up half over her face. "How old are you now, boy?"

"Fifteen."

"My, look at how you've grown. I remember seeing you as a babe in your mother's arms during a visit to Berk long ago."

"You…you met my mom?"

"Oh yes, I knew her well. Valhallarama of Berk. Strong Viking woman. Such a prize."

Hiccup frowned. "A 'Prize'?"

That way of thinking was practically antithetical on Berk. Women were seen as equal to men, largely by virtue of the fact that women were equal to men and thus equally prone to hammer-tossing you out to sea if you questioned that equality. They were people, not objects. They were Vikings and you did not speak of a Viking with disrespect.

Bertha ignored his question and said, "Come closer, boy, let me see you. You look a bit like your mother, I think."

Hiccup took a step closer but now his vision was adapting to the dark. He had good night vision. Toothless liked to go night flying sometimes, liked to be in his element, and it gave Hiccup a good exercise for his eyes.

Bertha was…really hairy, like extraordinary hairy, even for a Viking woman.

"Yes, you have your mother's eyes," Bertha whispered.

"And you uh…you have very nice…beady ones," Hiccup blurted. They were very beady and familiar, they were…just a little bit…

"All the better to see you with, my boy."

As for her hair, he was starting to realize that what looked like long, luxurious locks wasn't all hair on her head.

"Uh, that's a very big beard you have, too."

"I'm quite proud of it."

"That's also a—that's a very deep voice you have, also," Hiccup said, his heart starting to pound in his chest, fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. He moved just slightly closer, his curiosity overwhelming, and tried to get a closer look of what might possibly be more of a Bert than a Bertha.

"Ach, it's taken years of cultivating a proper chieftainess's voice," she said, as Hiccup moved closer. "You've got to have it nice and deep for the bellowing, you understand?"

Bertha smiled in the dark, a crooked smile, her teeth glinting brightly in the half-light.

"And those are very big, very manly fists you have that are—that are kind of big even for the fists of a Viking lady." Hiccup shook his head. "You're just—you're a man. Admit it, you're a man and you're not Bertha."

He stepped forward, jabbing an accusatory finger in "Bertha's" direction.

"The real Bertha disappeared, you came in the dead of night, and you've been hiding in the dark and pretending to be her ever since."

That was when the imposter threw off the covers, darting into the light of the fire with a speed that was surprising for such a hulking body, and one of those massive, calloused hands grabbed Hiccup by the collar, lifting him clear off the floor. He he wasn't just facing any old imposter. To Hiccup's horror, he found himself staring up into the beady-eyed, crook-toothed, scarred face of none other than Alvin the Treacherous.

"Well spotted, lad!" said the massive Viking. "Too bad you figured it out after walking right into a trap."

Hiccup struggled to get out of Alvin's grip. For once, his skinniness worked in his favor as he was able to slip out of his vest and make for the door. He opened his mouth to yell out the alarm but a massive hand clamped over his mouth before he could and he was pulled close and punched in the stomach so hard he had the wind knocked out him. Being barely able to breathe put a slight damper on the ability to yell for help.

Gasping and wheezing for air that felt like it wasn't coming fast enough, Hiccup twisted out of Alvin's grip yet again, falling to the floor on his knees.

"Get back here, you slippery—"

Ingrid had said he was an eel. An important thing to note about eels? They knew how to _bite_. Even though he was on his knees on the floor and was barely able to draw breath, he wasn't about to give up without a fight. Grabbing the discarded fireplace poker, the end of which was still glowing faintly, he jabbed it right in Alvin's thigh (even though that wasn't quite what he was aiming for).

The Outcast let out a loud and angry scream, grabbed the poker, ripped it out of Hiccup's hands and tossed it away.

Still, he'd screamed right? That meant Snotlout and Tuffnut would know something had gone wrong.

"Why you little _irritant_," the Viking said, scowling. Picking up Hiccup by the throat with one hand, he used his other to pull the younger Viking's prosthetic off his leg, tossing it uselessly to the side. "You're lucky I need you alive. But then, the fact I need to keep you alive despite it all is going to turn out to be bad luck in the end, isn't it."

The Viking laughed a low and sinister laugh and the last thing Hiccup saw before his head was slammed into the floor was Alvin's crooked teeth curled in a smile. Then the shadows that had concealed Alvin consumed everything in Hiccup's vision and his entire world was swallowed up by the darkness.

* * *

"So you've just been waiting here the whole time?" Astrid questioned Snotlout.

"Uh yeah. Yeah, the entire time. All of it," said Snotlout insistently.

A little _too_insistently for Astrid's liking, in fact, and her eyes narrowed. The timing of this was worrying her. She and the others had flown off and during the time they'd discovered the wreck, Hiccup, Tuff, and Snotlout had been asking their questions. By the time they'd gotten the dragons back to the ship, Hiccup had gone in to see Bertha. That meant, factoring in the time it took to sail the ship back to Hopeless, Hiccup had been in Bertha's house for over an hour.

"You were here for the whole time like you watched Hookfang the whole time when we were out patrolling with DUMB?"

Snotlout winced. "Kind of a little like that, yeah—but only a little!" he insisted as Astrid rolled her eyes, Fishlegs facepalmed, and Ruffnut put her hand on her hip.

"We only walked away for a few minutes," Tuffnut insisted.

"Why would you do that?" Astrid asked, annoyed, shaking her head.

"There were girls! What we were supposed to do, ignore them?" said Tuffnut, throwing up his hands.

"Yes!" said Ruffnut. She turned to Fishlegs. "Is there any way to become unrelated to someone?"

"Actually—" Fishlegs started, but Astrid raised her hand to shush him.

"Okay, so it's been almost an hour. What did he say to do if he was in there too long?" Astrid asked Snotlout and Tuffnut.

"Well, it depends on the reason," said Tuffnut. "If the reason was decapitation, he said to just bring his head home for burial."

"And we're not allowed to keep it or he'll haunt us as a draugr," said Snotlout, somewhat ruefully.

"He is so _selfish_," said Tuffnut.

"And if it wasn't because of decapitation?" Astrid prompted.

"Then he said to knock under the pretense of it starting to get so late and us needing him for something."

"Then let's do that," Astrid said, storming towards the door with purpose.

"I don't get it, is she jealous or something?" Tuffnut said to Fishlegs. "Isn't Bertha supposed to be like super man-hairy?"

"We found a shipwrecked ship that we think was Bertha's," Fishlegs said, his tone of voice highlighting the seriousness of their find. "It looks like it wasn't destroyed in a storm. It looks like it was attacked by people—"

"Which means someone is _lying_about Bertha's story," finished Ruffnut.

"He could be in danger in there," said Fishlegs, as Astrid went to knock, paused, and then pushed open the door, which was already slightly ajar. "There's a possible conspiracy going on and we have no idea how—Astrid?"

She'd slipped inside without a word.

"Guys!" Astrid called out, her voice full of more alarm than they'd ever heard in it. The tone it had them all fighting each other to get through the door and into the room.

Astrid was already at the back door, looking out at the forest, something long and metallic clutched in her hand, and somethimg furry clutched in the other.

"She took him—or somebody—whoever was in here took him! Something's wrong and we need to find Hiccup! He's in trouble!"

"How do we know that he's been taken or whatever?" Tuffnut protested.

"Because he'd never go somewhere willingly without this," Astrid said, turning around and holding out what she was holding in her hands so they could see it more clearly in the light of the embers of the fire.

In one hand was his vest.

In the other was Hiccup's false leg.

Tuffnut and Snotlout shared a mutual look that almost vaguely resembled guilt and Ruffnut punched her brother on the shoulder, hard. Leaving the now-squabbling twins fighting, Astrid launched herself out the back door, towards the forest.

"Hiccup!" she called out as loud as she could, hoping he was still in range to shout back. "HICCUP!"

Only the hooting of an owl in the near-dark of the marshy forest answered her.

* * *

Hiccup wasn't nearby because Hiccup was bound and gagged and tied in a burlap sack being tossed in a boat in a hidden cove on the other end of the island.

"Thanks to you, boy," said Alvin to the struggling figure in the sack, making muffled noises through the gag. "I'm going to rule these waters! And there's nothing anyone will be able to do to stop me. Not with dragons on my side."

Hiccup made a noise that was clearly one of protest, something along the lines of, "Mm mebr pfell moo hfow do dane dem."

"What's that?" Alvin said, holding a hand up to his ear to listen. "'I'll tell you everything you need to know before long'? Is that what you said?"

Alvin punched the sack hard and Hiccup went down, curled up on the bottom of the boat, as Alvin started to row.

"It might as well have been what you said, lad, because I'm an outcast for a _reason_. I'll get the dragon-training knowledge…" he leaned down and with one hand, shook the sack threateningly, knocking Hiccup around inside. "…and I'll get it whether you _want_ to give it up or not."


	4. Chapter 4

******A/N: **Just a note, but I'm not including Heather Report. It sort of retreads some of the ground in the story and it's too late to go back and write stuff in the early chapters dealing with the aftermath of the episodes. I also hate how Hiccup picked up the idiot ball with not trusting Astrid saying that she straight up saw a strange girl they didn't know talking with a mortal enemy. (Bad writing there and I'm not digging the show as much now.) So, in the fic's universe, it just never happened.

* * *

**Stratoc: **Glad you feel that way. A slightly darker episode of the show was the feel I was going for. And haha, you'll find out what happened to the REAL Bertha soon enough.

**Cyclone20**: There will definitely be some more Astrid/Hiccup romance. Keep an eye out!

******Mikazuki Mitsukai: **A couple of your questions will be answered this chapter and I'm glad the creepiness of the scene where Hiccup faces "Bertha" came through. It was actually pretty brave for him to walk through the door of a very temperamental Viking when a possibly-strange situation was going on. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way Hiccup hoped. You're right about the Red Riding Hood vibe-that was intentional.

**Spiffswishy:** Yeah, I pretty much wanted the awkward to be powerful enough to give off Awkward-Radiation with that scene.

**Kumiho-Kitsune**: Thank you for sticking around to read more of my stuff!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

* * *

"Bong!" Phlegma's voice wasn't so much a sound as a force, compelling the Vikings of Hopeless to come out of their houses and into the street. Astrid only wished she'd someday be able to have the presence of Vikings like Phlegma.

As it stood, she was there by Phlegma's side with her axe in her hand, not held threateningly, but making it clear there was a potentially hostile situation in the works. In her other hand she held Hiccup's leg. Part of her wanted to be out there looking for Hiccup but she also wanted to be here to help work out the puzzle of what happened. So that her dragon wasn't grounded and useless, Ruffnut was flying Stormfly at the moment with Tuffnut flying Barf and Belch by himself in the search to find Hiccup. The task of flying back home to Berk and telling the Chief what happened had been relegated to a very unhappy Snotlout.

"What's going on?" asked Ingrid.

"Hiccup is missing," declared Phlegma. "We wish to have words with Bong. Where is he?"

"Here, I'm right here," said Bong, making his way out, leaning on his heavy staff. He was half-dressed, clearly having been in the middle of settling down for the night. "What's happened?"

"Hiccup is missing," said Phlegma, "and so is your chieftainess. The door was open and when Astrid went in, the house was empty."

"But what makes you think there was some sort of abduction?"

"We didn't say we thought it was an abduction," said Astrid, some of her suspicions raised.

"You'd hardly wake the whole village if you didn't think the boy was in danger somehow," Bong pointed out logically.

Astrid frowned and held up Hiccup's leg. "This was left behind."

The Bog-Burglars all exchanged worried looks and started whispering amongst themselves. They understood the seriousness of someone with a false leg having left it behind.

"What's happened here is clear," said Bong. "Bertha was ill. If she wasn't there either then whoever it was must have kidnapped them both."

"Bertha? Kidnapped? Even while sick, that's impossible!" said Ug.

"She's been terribly ill. Languishing, really," said Bong. "She wouldn't let me near her for me to be sure, but it's entirely possible she was weak enough to be taken. We have to find them, we have to save them both. But who could have done this?"

That was the question of the hour.

* * *

Snotlout sooo did not want to be doing this. Especially if Stoick asked how Hiccup had been kidnapped because then he'd either have to tell him the truth or he'd have to lie and then deal with how angry he'd be when someone like Astrid told him the truth.

And it wasn't even his and Tuffnut's fault! So maybe they should have kept better watch but Hiccup was taken out through the back door of the house anyway, right? Who's to say that didn't happen silently? Even if they'd stayed close by they might not have heard anything, right?

Perhaps luckily for Snotlout, he didn't have to travel as far as he thought he'd have to. As he was flying, Hookfang's head darted this way and that, as if he were listening for something. Then he veered off in an entirely different direction than he'd been going, taking a hard right.

"Hey! Hey, Hookfang, where are you going? We have to go back to Berk! Hookfang!"

The dragon didn't listen, flying as fast as he could in the direction he'd chosen. But then, after a bit of time, he saw why. In the distance were two figures riding on a very large dragon.

They were bickering.

"-could have sworn we're supposed to take a right at Death Straits."

"It was a left. We're on the right track, Gobber."

"If it was a left, wouldn't we be on the left track?"

"If you make one more stupid joke you're swimming home."

"Hey!" Snotlout called out waving his hand as Hookfang flew them in closer. "Hey, what are you doing out here?"

"Snotlout?" Thornado hovered in the air so Stoick could talk with the teen. "We came to, ah...well."

"Stoick here got nervous about Hiccup handling it all, even though Phlegma's with him. And everyone pulled together fairly quickly to get the fleet equipped this year, Bick and Bock worked out their differences on their own, and I had a few productive days in the forge without getting interrupted by any dragons in need of a good tooth-pulling. With you lot traveling by ship, we got most of it done probably before you even got to Hopeless."

Stoick coughed awkwardly into a massive hand. "So, on account of not being as busy as I thought I'd be, I figure it would be a good idea to-"

"-to make sure Hiccup hasn't screwed the pooch yet."

"-to be here to show Hiccup the ropes myself," Stoick insisted, turning to glare over his shoulder at Gobber. "I knew with Thornado I'd get to Hopeless only a few days after you all arrived by ship. Gobber came along because he's got a ladyfriend on the island."

"Aye, she's well worth the trip."

"But why are you out here? Were you heading back to Berk?" Stoick asked Snotlout.

Moment of truth.

"I was coming to get you," said Snotlout. "Things got all messed up."

The look of concern that passed over Stoick's face was severe enough that Snotlout decided he could find out about the watch thing later.

"Messed up _how_?" Stoick asked.

"Hiccup's gone missing and the chieftainess of Hopeless is gone, too."

The new look on Stoick's face _definitel_y meant Snotlout wasn't telling him the truth anytime soon.

* * *

Spending hours in a stinking sack with his air mostly cut off wasn't exactly a party. Shortly after Alvin rowed them out to sea, Hiccup was unloaded and dragged onto what was probably a longship. By then, his body was aching from being knocked around and forced to stay in one position for that long, but that barely held a candle to his mind, which was racing as he tried to figure out what to do next.

The odds were not good. He was being sailed to who-knew-where and the others apparently hadn't spotted the Outcasts' longship yet. Hiccup knew there was a chance they might never spot it, especially with the clouds of fog that clung to the island of Hopeless as stubbornly and persistently as the Vikings that lived there. That meant that rescue was probably not happening, which meant it was up to Hiccup to rescue himself. That would have been daunting enough with two functioning legs, but without his prosthetic, he knew he didn't have a chance.

Of course, none of it mattered at all if he couldn't get air soon. It barely permeated the sack and because of it he was baking in his own body heat and half-suffocating.

Muffled noises through his gag were the only way he could communicate the problem but one of Alvin's lackeys seemed to pick it up.

"'Ey boss, I think 'e can't breathe. We need 'im breathin', roight?"

"Open it up and tie him to the mast," ordered Alvin and then Hiccup was thanking the gods as the sack was opened up and fresh air rushed in to his greedy lungs and cooled the skin on his sweat-soaked face. His gratitude lasted all of five seconds before he was dragged by the wrists over to the mast.

"No no, not sitting. Stand him up."

"Ain't he going to get tired, boss? Only one leg and all?"

"Might as well give him a taste of what's in store for him," grinned Alvin, walking over to Hiccup as they stood him on one foot and tied him to the mast. The only reason he didn't flop over was because of the ropes holding him up. Standing was out, but glaring, though, that he could do.

"Shame about the leg, lad. It'd make some of this easier for you. Y'see, there's all kinds of ways to get a man to talk about somethin' he doesn't want to talk about."

Hiccup's eyes widened, but then they narrowed again in defiance.

"Some of them are bloody as anything, but we can't be having that, can we? I enjoy the blood eagle as much as the next Viking, this isn't about making you suffer, lad. This is about information and getting you to realize you're much better off giving it than keepin' your mouth shut. We can't have you dyin' on us right in the middle, but that's why it's a good thing not everything that loosens a man's tongue _actually_loosens his tongue."

Alvin undid the gag around Hiccup's mouth and the younger Viking shrugged his head so that he could wipe his face on his vest to clean up the drool.

"So, that's it then, you think you can get the dragon-training knowledge out of me with torture?"

"I could get anything I wanted out of you with it!" Alvin said. "I could get you cursing your own father, disowning your dragon, and betraying your tribe if that was the result I were lookin' for. That's the beauty of it, lad."

"I'm not going to tell you _anything_and my friends are going to find me. Any minute now."

Alvin laughed. "In this fog? Not a chance! No, what's going to happen is you're either going to realize what's good for you and tell me what I want to know, or you're not and you're going to tell me what I want to know anyway. And do you know why?"

"Oh, I'm dying to hear it."

"Because I outsmarted you. Not used to that, are you-little runt of a thing surrounded by Vikings strong as me. You're a bright one, outsmarted ol' Alvin and everything. Had to be clever just to get along, didn't you? Thing is, not all us Vikings with strength are lacking in the brain department. I knew if I replaced Bertha I could work the Bog-Burglars into conflicts with your dragons, I knew Stoick would be too busy to come himself, and I knew that meant there was a good chance he'd send you along."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?"

"My point, lad, is that I'm not called Alvin the treacherous for nothin'! Treachery is nothin' without cunning and I've got plenty of it."

Alvin leaned forward and jabbed Hiccup in the chest.

"And that," he said, "means you're not going to think you're way out of this. Not this time. You, my boy, are outmatched."

With mounting dread, Hiccup realized that Alvin was right. He was outnumbered, outmatched in physical strength, and apparently he'd been outsmarted. Did he even have a chance? He'd certainly spend all his time trying to think his way out of this but the odds he'd be able to do it were not good.

"You get it now, I see! It's all over your face."

"I'm-I'm not going to talk," Hiccup insisted, lifting his chin in defiance. "No matter what you do. I'm not-I'm-"

He was scared. There were times that he jumped right into action and stuffed the fear down deep but standing there, tied up and waiting for the journey to end and waiting for what came at the end of it, he'd never been more afraid in his life, not even when fighting a dragon the size of a mountain.

That was a sad state of affairs for the world, wasn't it? That a human could be more frightening and awful than a dragon the size of a mountain?

"We will see about that now, won't we, but just so you understand how serious I am-" Quick as lightning thrown from the hammer of Thor himself, Alvin drew a small blade from his belt and threw it at Hiccup's face.

Hiccup let out a little yell of alarm-and of pain-as he felt his cheek sliced open the moment the knife thunked into the mast next to his face. It was just a nick. He could tell from the blood he felt running down his cheek; it wasn't quite enough to be alarming. Alvin went over and pulled the knife out of the wood with ease and held it up to Hiccup's throat.

"-there's a little taste of what's to come. If you do make the unfortunate choice of keepin' your mouth shut, lad, then get ready for it to be less of a taste and more something like a _feast._"

Alvin backed away and as Hiccup stood there, panting and bleeding, the only coherent thought that could be summoned into his panicked mind was:

_I am __**so**__ screwed._

* * *

It seemed to Astrid that everything converged all at once.

"We're bringing our dragons and you will not harm them," Phlegma has informed the Bog-Burglars, without much argument to the contrary, and then they'd blown their one ship's horn to signal their other ship and to call back the dragon-riders.

Both responded at about the same time. Incidentally, that was also when Stoick came riding in on his dragon, the majestic image ruined only by Gobber tossing his hand (and hook) up in the air in delight.

"Ingrid! Wonderful to see a lovely face like yours in the middle of complete diplomatic catastrophe!"

Ingrid couldn't stop a grin from coming over her face, but her arms were crossed and an eyebrow was raised. "Gobber."

Stoick, on the other hand, jumped off his dragon before he'd even landed.

"What happened? Have you found Hiccup?"

"No luck," said a worried Fishlegs as he landed. "The fog's just too thick. We could've passed within feet of their ship and not seen it. How come you got here so fast?"

"We were already on the way. Things got tidied up back home faster than we'd thought." Stoick went on, "How did this even _happen_?"

"It's a long story," said Astrid, "but the short version is Bertha was sick, Hiccup went to go talk to Bertha in her hut because she refused to talk to anyone, and then both of them were gone. Hiccup's vest and leg were left behind and we know he can't get anywhere-"

"Without his false leg." Stoick winced and clenched his hands into fists, waving them in a gesture of frustration. He was always quite articulate with his fists.

"Has anyone managed to track anything? Were there footprints?" asked Gobber.

"One pair and they led to the woods," Tuffnut said. "We lost them for a while but found some on a beach. We figured that was where they launched a small ship from, so we've been searching around that area ever since, but we didn't find anything."

"He has to still be nearby," said Stoick said. "They'd be going by ship-"

He stopped. They all stopped as Toothless came bounding out of the recently-arrive ship. He looked pleased to no longer be cooped up and it was obvious to all of him who he was eager to see after being separated for a little while. Nosing around and obviously searching for someone, he seemed disheartened when he couldn't find him.

"Toothless," said Astrid and the dragon bounded over to her, pressing his nose in near her fondly. She placed her hand on his nose. "Toothless, Hiccup's gone. He was taken by someone."

The dragon's visible excitement faded.

"We're going to find him. I promise."

The dragon looked around frantically, sniffing the air, as if to confirm that what Astrid was saying was true, and they could all see the moment that Toothless realized she was telling the truth. The Night Fury turned around in a panicked circle, then let out the most miserable, pitiful whine in all of existence, a crooning worried noise that had the same keening tones that one might find in the voice of a parent missing their child or a sibling missing their sibling.

"By the gods, it can understand what she says, can't it," said Og, amazed. "And it's worried about the boy."

"We told you," said Fishlegs. "Dragons can get along great with humans. They have very strong protective instincts once they start to trust you. Toothless is very, very close to Hiccup."

"Speaking of trust," said Astrid, turning to face the Bog-Burglars, "we're wondering if we should still trust you. We found what might have been your chief's ship. It was washed up on an island and there were no signs of it being destroyed by a storm or by dragons."

"There were marks from grappling hooks," Fishlegs put in, "and burn marks that are consistent with the use of catapults."

"I don't understand," said Ingrid. "Are you suggesting Bertha was lying about her ship being wrecked and swimming back to our island?"

"She what?" said Stoick, still trying to catch up.

"The reason Bertha was hiding herself away because she was sick from supposedly surviving her ship being wrecked by a storm and swimming back to Hopeless," Fishlegs explained quickly. "Bong was her go-between so she could still communicate with the Bog-Burglars because he's a doctor."

"Even if Bertha wasn't lying, _someone_was lying," said Astrid, glaring at Bong.

"I swear to you, I told everyone exactly what she told me," the doctor insisted.

"Bong is a friend to this island," said Ingrid. "He's risked his life when we were ill with plague to see us through it."

"It's possible he's telling the truth," Fishlegs said. "Bertha was always hiding in the dark, right?"

"Yes," answered Bong. "Always."

"What if Bertha never really came back to the island?" suggested Fishlegs. "What if the person that Bong spoke to was an imposter? Someone that wrecked Bertha's ship specifically to tell the Bog-Burglars that story and take Bertha's place?"

Bong rubbed at his chin. "To tell the truth, I didn't get a much better look at her than Og did. She wouldn't let me examine her, the curtains were always drawn, and her room was always dark. She hardly spoke and when she did it was in barely more than a whisper. "

"If it was an imposter," said Fishlegs, "it makes sense why he or she'd use him as a go-between. He hasn't lived as long on the island as everyone else and didn't know her as well. He wouldn't notice if the imposter said things that were out of character."

"Here I'd thought it was because she trusted me," said Bong, looking taken aback by this knowledge, upset that what he'd believed was trust in his capabilities had been... "In reality, I was chosen because whoever it was thought I was enough of a fool to not realize the truth."

"Alright, alright, so if it was an imposter then who was it? What were they hoping to accomplish?" asked Ingrid.

"Clearly, they were trying to deal damage to both our tribes," said Stoick. "Whoever it was, they were most likely a mutual enemy of ours."

Astrid's face twisted up into one of concentration as she recalled something she'd heard Hiccup say on the ship ride over.

"...Don't the Outcasts try to raid your islands?"

"Alvin the Treacherous is responsible for this," came a commanding voice off to the side, and standing there, dripping wet, seaweed clinging to the spikes of her armor-and as hairy as ever-was the real chieftainess of the Bog-Burglars, Bertha the Boisterous.

* * *

Before long, Hiccup's leg was aching terribly. Standing with all his body weight on one foot was exactly the torture Alvin said it would be, but Hiccup didn't let any reactions to the pain pass over his face. He tried to just focus on his breathing, taking in air slowly and letting it out.

That wasn't enough though. He tried letting the ropes take his whole weight, but they cut into his skin, even through his clothes.

"Uncomfortable?" Alvin said airily.

Hiccup glared.

"Good."

"This isn't going to work," Hiccup said, flexing his toes in his boot, trying to stretch out the cramp that was forming in the arch of his foot. "It's just going to make my friends mad when they find out what you've been doing."

"Oh no, not your friends! Anything but your friends gettin' mad at me!" said Alvin, holding a hand to his chest. "I don't know how I can handle the fear!"

"Not really any good learning how to train dragons if we have ours set all your men on fire."

"Not really any good trying to set all my men on fire when they're on dragons themselves, is it?" Alvin said, and then he took out a spyglass and stared off into the distance.

"Land ho!" called a man up in the crow's nest.

"Gag him and get him back in the sack," said Alvin. "Is the other ship ready?"

"Yes, sir," answered one of his men. "Has our new friend been informed what will happen to him if he doesn't follow every single order we tell him?"

"Yes, sir, he's been properly terrorized, sir."

"Good."

As the ropes were cut and Hiccup was manhandled away from the mast, he caught a glimpse, far off, of a ship floating out in the water near an island.

"Oh no," he said, when he recognized the ship, but then he was gagged again and stuffed back into the cramped dark.

* * *

Time was short and the light was fading, so the exchange of information between the rest of the group and Bertha was brisk. Bertha had overheard some of her conversation so they quickly informed her of the rest.

"Well, Alvin got one part right. I did manage to swim back. It just took me longer than all that. He should have killed me when he had the chance, but he took a moment to gloat-even said my death would be for a greater purpose-and I managed to get a good shot in, but he knocked me over the side after that. Held my breath and stayed under long enough to fool him into thinking I'd drowned, I suppose. You know I'm the last to run from a fight, but my men were dead-"

The Bog-Burglars had assumed this, but they all hung their heads in respectful mourning and Bertha paused to do the same, before beginning to speak again.

"-My men were dead and my ship was sinking. I knew that to retaliate, I had to get back to Hopeless somehow. So I swam underwater until I was out far enough for the fog to hide me-for once, I had a reason not to curse the bloody stuff. Then it was swimming from island to island ever since, surviving on whatever I could find. Luckily, I know these islands better than the back of my hand."

"Are you sure it was Alvin himself that impersonated you?" asked Fishlegs. "Did he say anything about it?"

"No, but of all of the Outcasts, he's the one that's got the build for it-and the beard," said Bertha, rubbing her own luxurious one. "And if it was Stoick's son that was taken, no doubt this would be personal enough for him to take care of it himself."

She gave Stoick a nod and he nodded in return, leaving the Berk teenagers perplexed. What made it so personal?

"We'll send out our fastest ships, Stoick, to search at sea level, while your people take to the air. We'll find your son-and we'll make that traitorous no-good sneak of a Viking pay for what he's done."

Bertha held out her hand to Stoick and he gripped it firmly.

"And to think our tribes were ever set against one another!" said Stoick. "My ancestors, may they rest in peace, were short-sighted for not seeing the allies they could have in the fearless and steadfast Bog-Burglars."

The Bog-Burglars all looked incredibly heartened at that, with Og shouting: "Hear hear!"

"He always does know how to work a crowd," Gobber muttered under his breath to Ingrid, who couldn't hold back a smile.

With that, the various Vikings disbursed to start the search, the teens running back to their dragons and Stoick and Bertha directing their people in how the search was going to go. The two chiefs were in nearly complete agreement on nearly everything and when they disagreed, offered up better ideas to the other.

If only Hiccup could have seen it, Astrid thought. _That _was what being a chief was about. He'd gone to face Bertha alone to prove himself, even despite being suspicious, when Tuffnut and Snotlout or one of the Bog-Burglars willing to check in on their chief should have gone in with him. When _she_should have gone with him.

She knew Hiccup and she knew why he'd walked into that trap alone: to prove himself. He'd probably done it to try to handle the situation like he thought his father would (when really, Stoick was smart enough to have backup). It had been foolish.

At the same time, knowing how he'd always been treated, and remembering the look on his face when the Bog-Burglars were laughing at him, she couldn't blame him for trying so hard.

Walking over to Stormfly, she looked over and saw Toothless pacing worriedly.

"Sorry, Stormfly, but I think I'm going to let Ruff or someone else fly you again. Toothless will be miserable if he doesn't get to help find Hiccup," Astrid said, patting her Nadder on the nose.

On the ship was Hiccup's gear and thank all the gods, when Astrid looked through it, she realized that he'd packed the pedal his father had used when steering Toothless. It was too big for Astrid, but unlike his usual pedal, at least she'd be able to use it.

"Of course you packed it, Hiccup," she muttered fondly to herself. "Needed to cover all the angles, didn't you."

There was always the potential something bad could happen where someone else would have to ride Toothless and since that was the only way the dragon could fly, Astrid assumed that he wanted to make sure there was a way for someone else to fly him out of a bad situation.

Racing out with the pedal and the rest of Toothless' rig, she ran over to Night Fury and started setting it up. "We're going to have to figure this out as we go, big guy," she said. "But I've watched Hiccup steer you often enough."

Stoick noticed what she was doing and nodded his approval, coming over.

"Astrid, if you're taking Toothless, do you mind if someone else rides your Nadder? We need every dragon in the air."

"As long as they treat her right and as long as she's okay with them, it's fine. Who did you have in mind?"

"One question," said Bertha, walking up to Stoick and nodding respectfully towards the Nadder, a grin of excitement. spreading over her face. "How exactly do I steer this lovely thing?"

Stormfly immediately preened at the compliment.

"Well, getting her to like you is a start," said Astrid. "So far, you're doing just fine at that."

* * *

It was dark in the sack, only dim light passing through the holes in the fabric-which was, of course, scratching against his cut cheek uncomfortably. It was starting to throb a little, and he feared he was well on the way towards an infection. It was doubtful that Alvin had kept that knife very clean.

At least maybe he'd get a cool scar out of it? Scars on the face were always attractive in a Viking. It lended a Viking's appearance a bit of mystique and toughness. "How did you get that scar?" people would always ask, and then the Viking could brag about it.

In his case, he'd probably word it more something along the lines of, "I was facing a sworn enemy of my tribe and refused to back down so he threw a knife at my face that I only just barely dodged in time. It was awesome," rather than, "I was an idiot and fell into a trap and a sworn enemy of my tribe cut my face to show me how hopeless my situation was. It was awesome. Except for the part where it wasn't."

Hiccup felt like he was suffocating again but he knew he wouldn't be let out anytime soon, not with what the Outcasts were trying to pull. They couldn't risk him destroying the ruse.

Also, he had a feeling that he wasn't actually suffocating, more that he just maybe_ felt _like he was. From, you know, the sheer bloody-minded panic that he was feeling. His breath hitched in his throat and he tried to keep himself from hyperventilating, because he was pretty sure air wouldn't seep into the sack fast enough to compensate.

Yep, that was panic. Definitely panic. On account of the fact that he'd never felt more powerless and terrified in his life.

_Please find me. Please please find me. Please, find me. Please, for the love of all the gods in every pantheon in existence but especially the Norse ones, find me..._

* * *

_Please let us find him. Please please let us find him. Please, gods, let us find him in time... _

The litany was never-ending in Astrid's mind as she and the others flew on their search. Far off on one side, she could see Stoick and Gobber on Thornado-or at least his shadow in the fog-and far off on another, she saw Bertha on Stormfly. The chieftainess had taken to dragons like a Scauldron to water and had been very respectful to Stormfly so far. It only increased Astrid's esteem of her. She wished that circumstances were different so that she had more of a chance to talk to her.

Bertha the Boisterous was one of the most renowned chiefs among the tribes that dealt with Berk and beard aside (and it was indeed a very impressive one) she was one of the few female ones. As much as women were respected among the Vikings in their little corner of the world, some of the old traditions still held sway, especially the idea that chiefdom should be passed from father to son. While gaining respect for herself as a Viking hadn't caused Bertha any more problems than the average female Viking, Astrid had heard that she'd carved out respect for herself as a chief by sheer force alone.

Of course, as admirable as Bertha was, it wasn't time to think about fangirling. Astrid had to focus, especially since it was almost dark and since the fog was so thick. Before long, they'd be out of light and they could possibly lose Hiccup forever.

While Bertha was doing fine with her flying, flying Toothless was another matter. It had been rough at first, and even though the two of them had eventually managed, Astrid had the feeling that she'd have trouble with more complicated maneuvers.

Suddenly there was shouting far off and the horn call of one of the ships below.

"Astrid, Ruffnut and Tuffnut have found something!" bellowed Stoick. Astrid turned to pass the message to Bertha, but the chieftainess was already flying in that direction, clearly having heard Stoick's rumbling voice.

Going into a dive with Toothless brought Astrid through the thickest part of the fog and she saw other dragons circling a ship below.

It was a familiar ship with a familiar figure topside.

"Trader Johann?" she muttered to herself.

"Which way, Johann?" asked Stoick.

"They were headed for Outcast Island," said Johann shakily. "Saw them pass me in the fog but as my luck would have it, they didn't see me, thank the stars. Your boy was on board, tied to the mast. That's why I'm so far off course, meself. I was headed to Hopeless to raise the alarm."

"Why would they be heading to Outcast Island? Even with their defenses, they can't hold a candle to the dragons. Going somewhere that obvious is suicide," Gobber pointed out.

"Search me," said Johann. "All I know is that was the direction they were headed."

"Thank you, Johann. My son's life might depend on your information."

That seemed to make Johann even shakier, but that could easily be chalked up to his scare, coming that close to the Outcasts was likely terrifying to a simple trader. "Not a problem at all, your grace. My best wishes towards your son's safe and speedy recovery."

With that, all the riders took to the air again.

"Bertha, can you inform the ships? We're headed for Outcast Island!"

Something about it wasn't sitting right with Astrid, though, something niggling at her instincts, but what else could they do but fly and hope?

* * *

Hiccup was shaken awake, roughly, without even remembering when he'd passed out. Then again, it was hard to tell the passing of time when you were tied up in a burlap sack.

He was tossed over someone's shoulder-rather painfully-and carried for a good long while before the person carrying him tossed him to the ground-also painfully.

"Open the gates!"

Carried again. (Ow.)

Dumped again. (Yowch.)

There was the sound of a gate closing behind them and then a door opening and closing and then he was finally freed via being dumped unceremoniously to the ground. The gag was removed and this time he was gasping and choking as he sucked in air. (Blessed air!)

"Wait for it," Alvin said to his second-in-command, Savage.

Wait for what? Hiccup wondered. What were they waiting for-?

_Oh._

They were waiting him to notice his surroundings which were full of very unpleasant things. There were unpleasant bladed things and spiky things and things with screws. There were unpleasant things that looked like they were meant to be heated up and put unpleasant places and unpleasant things that looked like they were made to be sat on (that were usually also unpleasantly spiky).

"There it is," said Alvin, of the horrified expression that spontaneously came over Hiccup's face.

Hiccup carefully made that expression go away, even though the fear causing it hadn't.

"The decor could use some work."

"Function over form, you know how it goes," Alvin replied, circling around Hiccup where he knelt on the floor.

"Where's-?"

"Locked up. For now. Might be useful as a hostage later. I mean, look at you. Clearly, you take issue to just a dragon bein' hurt. What might you do at the threat of a person being hurt? What little bits of information might slip out? Always good to have options, I think."

Alvin nodded to one of his men. "Get 'im comfortable."

"Comfortable" apparently meant being forcibly seated in a chair with his wrists cuffed too tight to the arms of the chair. He was pulled up to a large wooden table that also probably doubled as a rack and Alvin sat down across from him.

"I've got to give you credit, there's grown men that'd be wettin' themselves at the prospect of all this. It's a shame I'll have to break that defiance-but then again, I don't have to...provided you tell me everything you know about training dragons."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Is this it? Pretty weak for an interrogation method, isn't it? 'Do this or I'll hurt you.' If you were really that smart and really that cunning, you'd figure out ways to make me slip up and give you the knowledge without having to torture me."

"Lad, I've got nothing to prove to you and I'm not about to try gettin' what I want to know out of you with interrogation alone just to prove how smart I am. Nice try, though."

"It was worth a shot," admitted Hiccup.

"Look at you. You're wasted on that island of yours, but that's what they do, lad, to people like us-"

"People like us? I'm _nothing _like you."

"It's been well-established so far that I'm no slouch in the brains department, lad. Smarter than you, at least in all this. They don't value that on Berk. I'd know."

"Why because they didn't appreciate how smart you were every time you did something to earn your title?"

"Because I didn't always look this way, lad. Not when I was exiled, at least." He said it in such an honest way that Hiccup almost believed it was the truth, but then decided it sounded_ too_honest. "You do what has to be done to survive when you've got nowhere to call home."

"And in your case, I'm guessing that involved absorbing a whole 'nother person?"

"In my case, it meant I had to _make_myself strong enough to survive and after I did, I cut enough throats to get to the top. My point, lad, is they didn't appreciate me on Berk, even before I ever raised a hand against them. They hated how intelligent I was. Your father, especially. If I ever wanted to do things a new way, he refused because it wasn't the Viking way. Sound familiar?"

Hiccup looked away. "It's not like that anymore."

"Is it? I heard the Bog-Burglars laughing at you when you walked outside, that first time you came to see 'Bertha.' Do you know why they think you're a joke?"

Hiccup didn't answer.

"Because 'e's told everyone that's what you are. Every island 'e's gone to, every trading post-and so 'ave any other Vikings from your island. Enough that even the Outcasts have heard every 'Hiccup the Useless' joke under the sun. Stoick's Little Embarassment. You're famous, lad! Though maybe not for something you'd want to be famous for. And it's because of your father."

"It's not like that anymore," Hiccup said quietly, staring at the table.

"And it will never be like that again, is what you think. You think that you've somehow shown him the light with all this business with the dragons. It won't last. Never does, on Berk. They're gonna turn on you, because they don't like different there, and let's face it, you're not exactly what we'd call 'standard,' are you."

"You've been exiled long enough I didn't even know who you are," Hiccup pointed out. "You don't know what it's like there now and it's not how you're saying it is. They accept me now-"

"For how long? Until you make another mistake? Until they decide they've got a handle on the whole dragon thing and don't need your help anymore?"

Hiccup couldn't stop the feelings of panic from welling up at Alvin's words. Those were the things he feared, that it was only temporary, that it was only for as long as he was useful. There was a reason he was so worried about the dragons being accepted on the island, why he took it so personally, and while a part of it was because he was afraid of being separated from Toothless and because he wanted to keep the peace between the dragons and their tribe, there was another reason, rooted in his own fears.

What if, one day, he woke up and it wasn't enough anymore? What if things went back to the way they used to be?

"Why protect a tribe that thinks so little of you that their acceptance is entirely conditional? It's not as if they actually care about you! Why should you care about them? And your father-here you are, doing everything you can to prove yourself and he's crackin' jokes on other islands about how terrible you are. Not exactly the actions of a loving father, are they?"

"He doesn't make those anymore," Hiccup insisted.

"How sure are you that he'll never make them again?"

Hiccup didn't have an answer to that, because he didn't know.

"That's what I thought." Alvin tsked and shook his head. "And you're willing to die for these people? Willing to suffer?"

Hiccup was still silent.

"...or are you?"

"I..." Hiccup stopped.

"You see the truth now, don't you."

"They're never really going to accept me, are they," Hiccup said hopelessly.

"Sad to say it, but no. Here among the Outcasts, though, we take the ones that don't fit in with other tribes. If you help us with the dragons, you'll have a place of honor here. Hiccup the dragon conqueror, clever enough to beat us at our own game! We need minds like yours. Just think, you'll have all the power you've ever wanted! People will respect you-in fact, they'll _fear_you!"

"Some respect would be nice," Hiccup acknowledged. If one of his hands were free, he'd have been rubbing his chin.

Alvin pushed a piece of parchment, a quill, and some ink in front of Hiccup.

"All you have to do for that, all you have to have power and respect, to be free of those nasty Vikings of Berk that only care how useful you are to them, is to tell me how to train dragons," Alvin said, unclasping one cuff so Hiccup's hand was free.

Hiccup took the quill, scratched his chin with the feather thoughtfully, then dipped it into the inkwell and began writing, sticking his tongue out between his teeth.

"The first step is this," he said after writing for just a moment, and then he slid the paper around so Alvin could read it.

Alvin's response upon seeing what Hiccup wrote was total silence.

"It's clear enough to read, right? I'm actually left-handed and you freed my right."

Alvin picked up the paper and crumpled it angrily in his hands. "Think you're funny, do ya'?"

It wasn't often that Hiccup cursed, mainly because he was so bad at it, but this really was one of those special occasions where he felt like he should give it a whirl. Hence what he'd written on the parchment and what he said next:

"No, I think you should follow those instructions to the letter and go fu-"

Alvin slapped him across the face before he got to finish telling him what he should do to himself and he did it hard. It was on the side that he'd already cut and Hiccup recoiled from it and felt his face immediately start swelling up even worse after.

Alvin nodded to Savage.

"Get him out of his clothes and tied up outside. Let's see how much he likes the cold."

"You're not as smart as you think you are if you think I'll betray my father and my tribe," Hiccup insisted as he was un-cuffed and dragged from the chair, his tunic pulled over his head roughly, "but you're even dumber if you think I'll subject the dragons to people like _you_."

"You'll be eating those words, lad," Alvin said as Savage bound Hiccup's hands and tossed him over his shoulder, "which might be a good thing since we're sure not goin' to give you anythin' _else_to eat."

That was how Hiccup found himself in his under-things, tied up to a wooden pole outside the Outcasts' fort, under guard of several much-more-warmly-dressed Outcasts.

As the chill started to steal over his limbs, it also stole over his heart. Unless they came soon, his friends weren't going to save him in time.

The ruse Alvin had pulled made it even less likely.

* * *

"Watch out for catapult fire and arrows, they'll know we're coming, and they're going to be on the attack. Bertha and Astrid, I want you on point, your dragons are the best at laying down cover fire," shouted Stoick as they made their approach. "Ruffnut and Tuffnut-"

Stoick trailed off as Outcast Island came into view and every Viking in the air fell into silence when they saw it.

Every building had been torched. The catapults were all gone, likely dismantled and carted out by ship. The island had such sparse resources and few places to hide that it was clear that the Outcasts had pulled up anchor and shipped out.

"No!" Stoick shouted as they went in for a landing. "No, no, no!"

Bertha cautioned him, "Stoick, be careful, they may still have left a trap behind!"

As Stoick and Gobber landed, they realized that they hadn't even done them the courtesy of believing they were worth a trap. The other riders landed to look around and Astrid hopped off of a worried and bewildered Toothless to run over to the chief's side.

"Where are they? Why would they have headed this way if they weren't coming here?" she asked, hoping he had something of an idea.

"Why would Johann have lied?" asked Bertha.

"Maybe they changed directions after Johann saw them?" Fishlegs suggested.

"Stoick, what are you looking at?" Gobber said, noticing that Stoick wasn't paying attention to the conversation. Instead, he was staring at a flat rock nearby. All the other Vikings took a look and saw that there was writing on it, runes scratched into the surface.

It was a taunt and it was clear who it was from. It was also clear that it had been sitting there for awhile, most likely left behind before Hiccup had even been kidnapped, as if the person who'd carved it had believed in their own plan with absolute certainty.

All it said was:

**Got your boy**.

With a loud yell of frustration and something else that could only be paternal grief, the chief suddenly took his hammer and slammed it down on the rock, smashing it into pieces.

They were all quiet as he took a moment to collect himself.

"We have to keep searching. If the ship went in this direction, it can't be far."

The look Gobber shared with Astrid, however, said something closer to the truth-that it could be very far indeed.

"Stoick..." Gobber said.

"What?" the chief snapped back.

"It's night-time, Stoick," said Gobber. They could all only just make each other out in the dark. "We haven't got any light to see by."

"We're getting back up in the air and we're finding that ship," Stoick insisted. "We are not leaving my son in the hands of that-that _monster_overnight."

"If we search now, chances are we might pass right over them and think an area's already clear because we've already covered it-"

"We're searching for Hiccup until we find him!" Stoick suddenly roared, rounding on his best friend. "I'm not losing him to Alvin! Not like I lost Val!"

Astrid's eyes widened and she shared a glance with Snotlout, wondering if he knew what Stoick was talking about, since he was related to the chief. The other teen just shrugged.

"Stoick, listen to me. We're all exhausted. We're hungry. We're not bats, so seeing him in the dark is out of the question. If we try to take the Outcasts on without any rest, we'll be useless in a fight. We need to rest and regroup."

The fight seemed to leave the chief's body. "He's going to hurt him, Gobber."

"I know," Gobber said simply. "But if we rest now, we have a better chance of keepin' him from _killing_him."

Stoick shut his eyes tight, taking several deep breaths, and Gobber placed a supportive hand on his shoulder.

There was only the slightest break in Stoick's voice as he told the others. "Get back in the air. We're going to find somewhere safe to set up camp and regroup the ships."

It might have been a trick of the near-darkness but Astrid thought there was something about the chief's eyes that made them look utterly lifeless.

* * *

Hiccup screamed. It wasn't so much that it was burning him, but it felt like it was burning him and that was enough. After leaving him outside until he'd nearly lost consciousness from the cold, until his limbs were numb, until every bone in his body ached, until his good leg felt like it was going to snap in two from all the weight he'd had to keep on it for hours, they'd dragged Hiccup back inside and immediately dumped nearly-scalding water on him. It wasn't hot enough to actually scald but having that much heat touch his skin after it'd gone numb with cold was agony. It was every time his leg had fallen asleep and he'd had those painful prickles as the feeling returned all crammed into one and he felt it over every inch of his skin.

The good thing was that he hopefully wasn't going to die of hypothermia now that his body had been heated up again and he'd been brought back into a room with a hearth.

The bad thing was that he had no idea what else that hearth was going to be put to use to do besides heating up the water that had caused him such pain.

Kneeling there sputtering and shuddering convulsively, arms wrapped around himself, Hiccup looked up to see his tormentor grinning.

"Last chance, boy, before the real fun starts, said Alvin, "Tell me how to train dragons and you'll be spared."

Hiccup closed his eyes tight, wincing. "You already have my answer."

"Alright then," said Alvin.

There was no pretending anymore that he wasn't afraid. There was no way to hide it when it was in every twitched muscle of his face, in the defeated slope of his shoulders and as Alvin stepped closer, he couldn't stop himself from leaning away, instinctually.

Alvin grinned that crook-toothed grin of his and gestured around the room.

"Looks like it's time to pick your poison."

"I get to choose? Wow, gotta love your sense of hospitality. Any chance there's a sense of empathy tucked away in there to? Most likely very, _very_deep?"

"None whatsoever."

"That's what I thought," Hiccup said miserably.

He tried to prepare himself for the unpreparable. Maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe he'd be rescued. If he wasn't rescued, maybe, just maybe, being a weakling would be a good thing for once, because maybe he'd die before it got too agonizing.

He hoped.

Then he wondered what had happened to his life that he needed to hope for something like _that. _

_What happened is you learned how to train dragons,_he told himself.

Now everyone in the whole _world_ was going to want to know how to do it, too.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Sorry for the long delay, guys. I fell head first into Return of the Guardians fandom and some friends and I are writing a pretty plotty and sprawling series of stories, so that's been eating a lot of my time. I wanted to spend as much time as possible getting the series mapped out. I also had my laptop break down for a month, had to work lots of overtime, and just got a new apartment and had to prepare for the move. This fic will be finished, though, since I have the whole story planned out, it's just going to update somewhat sporadically.

I originally wanted to make this chapter really long and less fillery but I figured it'd be better to give you something shorter rather than making you wait longer. Next chapter will have a daring rescue and a ton of action.

* * *

**Kirjava:** I agree with you about it being weird the show doesn't have him be nervous that often. One thing I loved about the movies was that Hiccup was afraid many times, but made visible effort to overcome that fear. When fighting the Green Death, for instance, you can tell he's terrified at various points, but he's working through it to try to take out the dragon and protect his tribe. I'm of the opinion that real courage isn't a lack of fear but having the fortitude to fight past it to do what's right, so there's going to be a lot of emphasis on that in the fic.

**Cyclone 20:** The leg thing is unfortunately an actual torture method used in the real world. Oftentimes, in countries with oppressive regimes, they don't want proof they're torturing their citizens so they try to use methods that don't leave marks. One method they often use is having the victim assume an uncomfortable position and hold it for a very long time, until their circulation is messed up and their muscles are hurting very badly. Sad, serious stuff when you think about how it's being used on innocent people every day. Research into this stuff for the fic actually has me wanting to have more involvement with human rights efforts like Amnesty International.

**Midnight Lupus:** I'm glad I wasn't the only one wondering! Even in Heather Report, Alvin seems to have it in his head that he needs Hiccup himself, so I'm wondering where they'll take it in the show. Probably not as dark a route as I am, but I do think that Alvin is willing to lay down some serious threats to get Hiccup to open up.

**Stratoc:** Man oh man, do I agree with you on the lack of peril in the show. I love the snappy dialog in it but it'd be a lot better with more over-arching story and more perilous stuff. Kids can handle it, after all, look at how much peril was in Avatar: The Last Airbender and how many kids watched that. At the very least, the last few episodes have been better with that, though, so I'm hoping they keep it up. I'm glad you like Bertha! The beard's mostly a gag but I wanted to also show how chill the Vikings are in this universe about men and women in different roles and with different gender traits. I figure they care most about toughness, so that a women could be an aggressive chief and have a beard and a man could knit doilies, and as long as they were Vikingly in battle, the Vikings don't care either way. As for the backstory with Val and Alvin, stay tuned!

* * *

**Chapter 5**

They made camp on an island they thought would be easily defensible, though they doubted they'd be attacked in the middle of the night. After all, Alvin and the Outcasts didn't want to be found so why would they approach them? After Stoick set the schedule for who was keeping watch, he bellowed to everyone, "Eat some food and then get some rest! We leave at first light."

Then he went over to Gobber and Bertha to have what was clearly a tense discussion. Both seemed to be trying to comfort the Chief, and strains of Bertha's loud voice made it clear she was promising the other Chief she'd do all in her power to help him find his son.

The teens got comfortable around their fire, their dragons laying down next to them and snarfed down some of the muskrat jerky that had been provided by the Bog-Burglars.

"This really isn't bad for stinky rat," said Tuffnut, leaning back against he and Ruffnut's dragon. "Could use a little more stink, though."

"The Bog-Burglars apparently have some kind of special brine marinade they use to get the stink out," said Fishlegs. "I asked them for their recipe but apparently it's a very highly guarded secret..."

"Why would they want to do that?" asked Tuffnut.

"Maybe they'd prefer that their food doesn't smell like you," Ruffnut cut in and Tuffnut shoved her, she shoved him back, and the situation devolved into a furious shoving match.

Snotlout laughed when Ruffnut managed to get in a particularly hard elbow to Tuffnut's face.

"I'm glad everything is all so funny to you," Astrid's voice punched in like a hammer that shattered the levity of the situation into a million pieces. The others stopped their shoving and laughing to look over at her.

"It's good you can laugh right now," she said, her tone venomous, "when Hiccup's probably getting tortured as we speak."

Their expressions changed to ones that were uncharacteristically guilty and they all looked at the ground. Fishlegs was the only one who didn't; instead he was looking at Astrid with concern and compassion for her obvious worry.

"You always do this," she said slowly. "You make jokes and never treat anything seriously. I told him that we were his friends, but the truth is, we're not his friends any more than we ever were. If we were, this wouldn't have happened."

"You're his friend, Astrid," Fishlegs pointed out. "You weren't there because me, you, and Ruffnut were doing something else he asked us to do -"

"I've done other things wrong," said Astrid, interrupting him, thinking of what had happened in the ship's hold. It had taken her some time, but she was starting to get a better idea of what had happened there.

_"Yes. Sorry. I was just-"_

_"Having a laugh. 'Ha ha, Hiccup's got a perverted brain like every other teenage boy in the world.' Hilarious stuff, I know, but I'd really like to put my pants back on before one of the others wanders down here and decides to make a whole party of the thing. Because they would." _

That's what he always thought, that they were having a laugh at his expense, that they would have a laugh at his expense if they had the chance. Astrid knew why and it hurt that there was such a lack of trust, but when you really got down to it, they'd never deserved trust in the first place. They always did laugh at him, even now, though it was a bit more friendly and convivial than before, but the edge that had always been there wasn't entirely gone.

Hadn't she played with his feelings during that conversation? Put him on the spot in a situation where, if their positions had been reversed, he likely would've covered his eyes respectfully and turned away? She'd twisted things around to embarrass him, lied about not having the same feelings towards him, made him feel like there was something wrong with him for having the same teenage...curiosity that she had. She was so concerned with hiding her feelings that she'd made him, yet again, the subject of mockery, this time with someone he clearly cared about.

She hadn't even really thought about it at the time, but now she realized that the look on his face had been the same embarrassed expression as when the Bog-Burglars had been laughing at him. It was the same expression that had always been on his face when he'd been laughed at and mocked and told he was useless time and time again.

"We used to treat him like he was nobody. We made him feel bad about himself because we thought it was funny or, in my case, because I thought he was lazy and an idiot. He could've turned into someone that hated us, but even after years of that, he lost his leg and nearly died trying to protect us."

Now they all looked incredibly guilty and Astrid was fairly certain she'd never even seen their faces in those configurations before.

"And what do we do to thank him for that? I made him feel like an idiot in the ship, and you two," she pointed to Snotlout and Tuffnut, "let him get captured by one of our worst enemies."

She shook her head. "What I don't understand is why, for so many years, we thought he was the useless one." She threw her hands in the air. "In any case, the least we can do right now is not sit here laughing and having a good time when he's probably hurt and scared."

With that, Astrid stood up and stomped away from the rest of them towards the shoreline, to have a moment alone.

"There's like this strange feeling in my chest right now," said Tuffnut, grasping at his shirt over his chest. "It's like...feeling bad. Over stuff. That I did."

"I think that's guilt," said Ruffnut, her eyes wide at the strange new feeling.

"I don't like it," said Tuffnut.

"How do I make it go away?" asked a miserable Snotlout.

Fishlegs just shook his head at the others and their emotional constipation and stood, walking over to where Astrid was standing, almost out of the range of the flickering light of the fire. She was standing there with her arms folded, looking out on the water.

"We'll find him," he told her. "Statistically speaking, even with their head start, there's still a limited range of territory that they could've gotten to and they likely have their headquarters within just a few days sailing. We have a distinct advantage since we're able to do an aerial search."

"That's not what I'm worried about. I know we'll find him eventually, but -"

"You're worried about the condition he might be in when we do."

Astrid nodded.

"Well," said Fishlegs, "they'll most likely keep him alive because they'll want what he knows, and he's smart, Astrid. Smarter than me, even."

It was rare that Fishlegs acknowledged his own intelligence. No Viking liked to hear that someone was more intelligent than them, even if it wasn't a trait that had particular value in their culture, but Astrid knew that Fishlegs trusted her enough to be open about it.

"I'm all facts and rote memorization, but Hiccup, he knows how to think on his feet. He's got a much more solid grasp on tactics. He'll be able to buy himself time and think himself out of the worst of it until we get there; he always does."

"What bothers me," she said, her voice just a tiny bit shaky, "is he probably knows we're coming, but -" She had think about this because she wasn't used to vocalizing feelings. Ever. "- when things are bad, you think about what's important: your tribe, your family, your friends. When you're being hurt by someone, you think about the people who care about you. He has his dad but even with that -"

"It's shaky ground there, much as I respect the chief."

"Exactly. And with us, with his friends, two of them couldn't even stick around to make sure he was okay when he asked them to. When it comes down it, if he needs to think about the people who, who he matters to, what if he doesn't -"

"He knows," said Fishlegs. "Look, the others may have the emotional capacity of the average patch of moss, but he knows that me and you are a bit more loyal than that. Most of all, though, whatever happens, no matter what doubts he has, he'll know one of us will never give up looking for him."

With that, Fishlegs gestured up to one of the rocks on the shoreline nearby. There was a figure there, standing as still as a statue, staring out on the water. The occasional spray from the waves hitting the rocks washed over him, but he didn't budge an inch in his silent vigil. If it weren't for the fire flickering on the metal of his tail rig he would have been nearly invisible.

Fishlegs put a comforting beefy hand on Astrid's arm.

"We'll find him and even if he's hurt by the time we do, we'll help him however he needs us to. Hiccup will be okay."

* * *

Hiccup was not going to be okay.

This was just the warm up and it was miserable. It was something that could've driven most people insane entirely by itself if they'd had a temperament other than his own. Fortunately, for Hiccup, he wasn't really all that scared of spiders. Growing up, he'd had a fascination with bugs and other critters around the island that'd had him letting them crawl over his hands so he could get a better look at them to draw them.

So he was dealing with this by rationalizing that it was the same thing, but just on a much, much larger scale.

What he needed to do was just keep himself completely still, which wasn't altogether that difficult when he had no room to move in the box they'd locked him in anyway. It itched and tickled, and he had to keep breathing in through lips that were kept almost completely closed and out hard through his nose to keep clearing it, but it was survivable. Keeping himself still meant they weren't biting and keeping his eyes closed had a twofold purpose of keeping them from getting in them and avoiding the horror of the situation. He was using his hands to plug up his ears so that was another horrifying scenario avoided.

Still, though, for a starting volley? Pretty brutal. Someone who was terrified of spiders would've been wetting themselves. Even if he'd been a normal person that just happened not to be as remarkably comfortable with crawly things as he was, he'd have been having problems by now. The cramping in his limbs was torture in and of itself. This wasn't going to be what broke him, but now he knew for sure that he wasn't going to be okay because something would.

* * *

"Don't worry, lass, we'll find your lad."

It was the first thing Bertha said to her that morning and the fact that Astrid wasn't even entirely awake yet as she checked her gear made it so she wasn't sure she'd heard her right.

"My - my lad?"

"Oh, it's obvious, what with you standing at the shoreline mooning the way you were last night."

Astrid's cheeks immediately colored pink. "Mooning?" Her voice was almost squeaky as she said it. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ain't no shame in it," said Bertha more gently than her boisterous bearing made her seem capable of.

Astrid was quiet for a moment as she made sure Toothless' rig was secure. "Isn't there, though?" She looked over to Bertha. "You know better than anyone about how we're supposed to be. We're Vikings, we have to be tough. We have to be strong. There's no room for...mushy things."

"Every Viking needs to let their guard down sometimes," said Bertha, "and you know someone's special when you trust them enough to do it around them. It's as simple as that. For me, it's Ingrid. She's my best friend, but the principle still stands."

"You make it sound easy."

"Think about it this way, lass," said Bertha, "do y'care about your tribe?"

"Of course."

"Your friends?"

"Yes."

"Your family?"

"Obviously."

"In the end, it's what makes us Vikings. Tribe, family, comrades-in-arms. It isn't just the fact that I can tear a man's head clean off his body with one hand that makes me a good chief, it's how I'll tear a man's head clean off his body with one hand to protect my people."

"You have both very powerful imagery and a point there," Astrid admitted.

"I'm just saying, lass, there's no shame in it. We're fierce but the reason it's so important we are is the things that we're fierce for. No reason that can't be worked in with our own personal identities as Vikings, y'see."

With that, the Chieftainess patted Stormfly on the nose and climbed up on her back.

"By the way, thank you for letting me ride this beauty. When this is all done with, think I'd like to find one of my own."

She flew off, leaving Astrid alone with Toothless to mull over her words. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Toothless giving her an odd look. It was on the smug side, making her wonder how much of Bertha's words that he'd understood.

"What are you looking at?" she muttered, and then jumped on the dragon's back to take to the air.

* * *

The search did not go the way they hoped. This meant that they had to make camp more than one night.

It meant that the emptiness in Stoick's eyes got emptier as time went on.

It meant that Astrid got less and less sleep at night, her own imagination betraying her with images of what Hiccup might be going through.

It meant that Toothless was getting more and more panicked as time went on, as fear for what happened to his boy overrode even his instinct to eat. Astrid had to cajole him into it, reminding him that he had to keep his strength up to fly.

It seemed, though, that the longer Toothless went without his favorite person to regurgitate fish on, the less he wanted to eat any.

* * *

"Fish heads. My favorite. Then again, I guess torture chambers aren't exactly known for their fine cuisine."

"You want something better, lad," said Alvin, "you know what you have to give us in return. We wouldn't feed you anything, but -"

"- but the fact I can barely stay conscious from hunger and thirst kinda puts a damper on the whole getting-information-out of me thing. I did warn you about that before I started fainting, remember," answered Hiccup, reeling as they shoved the tin plate of boiled fish heads within reach of his shackled hands. There was a tin cup of water as well, but there wasn't much in it.

In the end, Hiccup tried to see the sunny side of that. At least if he had hardly anything to drink, it'd mean less awkward, supervised bathroom breaks. Silver lining, right? He drank the water the fish heads had been boiled with first, trying not to gag. It was nice and salty. He needed salt, salt and water. He craved it for some reason, which meant his body probably needed it. Then he drank the water, that being the most vital.

Then, with dirty fingers he started picking at the soft flesh of the fish heads and cramming every edible bit of it in his mouth. He hesitated on the eyes - some people in Berk ate them, but they'd never been his favorite - but he had to keep his strength up and that meant eating every single bit he could. He managed to mostly clean all the edible meat from the bones before they were taken away (before he was finished, out of spite) and then he was left kneeling there, feeling somewhat better for having eaten and having something to drink, but dreading what was coming next.

If he needed his strength up, it was because they were planning something awful.

"Look at you," said Alvin. "Do you have any idea how you look right now?"

"Well, I'm filthy, my clothes are soaked through with sweat so I probably smell like a dead goat - or Tuffnut, same thing - and I'm pretty sure there are spider guts in my hair. Haven't slept more than two hours at a time, so I probably have circles under my eyes..."

He held up his hand, which rattled the shackles. "I'm so pale right now that I'm nearly translucent..." He looked up at Alvin. "Not exactly looking my best, I figure."

"You're rambling, too. Getting a bit addled in the head, are we?" Alvin pointed out.

"Yeah, that's the lack of sleep. And, you know, the fear. We both know it's there so I'm not gonna pretend it isn't, but it only just proves a point that you haven't seem to have gotten yet: you can scare me, you can hurt me, you can threaten to kill me, and I won't tell you what you want to know. I'll die first. I'll suffer first -"

"We've barely even gotten started and look at you -"

"- I'll go insane first. But my lips are sealed."

"What I don't understand lad is why you're willing to do it for them, of all people. For the people of Berk, fickle as the wind in who they're bootin' off the island this week."

"You've already tried this tack with me -"

"Because it's true. They don't care about you, lad. Why, your little friends didn't even stick around to keep watch for you. Why won't you see how worthless you are to them?"

Hiccup was quiet for a very long time, before he admitted, "I do see that. I always have." He shrugged, the shackles jangling. "It doesn't matter. I can care about someone when they think I'm worthless, because when it really comes down to it, I understand why they think I'm worthless."

"I don't think you're worthless -"

"You think I'm useful and think you can trick me into thinking it's the same as worthwhile. You'll think that up until I'm not useful to you anymore. You don't treat someone you think is worthwhile the way you're treating me."

"You're only 'urting yourself in the end. Over nothing."

"You can't understand it because you're incapable of feeling it. You know, on account of being evil," Hiccup pointed out.

"Point. Can't say as I've ever been in a position to be completely useless to everyone and everything," admitted Alvin, taking a different tack now.

"Thank you for no longer trying to insult my intelligence."

"No no, I can see now, that isn't going to work with you, boy. We're goin' a different direction now. We're going with the truth."

"The truth?"

"The truth is that they'll be better off wit'out you," said Alvin. "The truth is, the only notable thing you've ever done is learn to train the dragons and even if I'm not the one to figure out how to do it, now that people know it can be done - thanks to you - someone else will and they'll do more damage with it than you can possibly imagine. It's inevitable now."

Hiccup was silent in response, looking down at his shackles.

"Do you think they'll even want you after this? Half-mad? Because you are, lad. You're a bit on the insane side."

"No no, I completely agree with you there on the being crazy thing. They'd have to invent some kind of - of, I don't know, special healer that works on just talking to people until they're not crazy anymore for me to be sane again, at this point."

"They don't even want you _now_."

"They're still coming for me."

"'Course they are. You're their golden boy at the moment. Least until they work out everything you do for themselves."

"I thought you were taking a different tack now."

"I am. Let me get to it," Alvin said, holding up a hand. "My point is you're nothing. You've always been nothing. You'll always be nothing. And no one's gonna be sorry you're gone."

"Aah, wait, I get it. The mental torture angle. You're trying to crack my sense of self so I'll be more likely to snap under the physical torture and give you what you need to know. Tricky tricky."

"Is it working?"

"Nope."

"Well, why not?"

"You're being too obvious about it, for one, and two, you're not telling me anything I don't already know."

He knew where he stood with the tribe. Oh, he told himself all the time that they cared about him now, that he had friends, that he had his father's approval, but when all the illusions were stripped away, that wasn't the case.

He was at his rawest now and those little lies he always told himself all shattered in the face of what he'd endured so far.

"The thing is," said Hiccup, "you're wrong about my not being missed."

"And who will miss you? Really?"

"My dragon."

"You're just a hand that feeds him."

"He's smarter than he looks. Smarter than you, if you think you can convince me I don't matter to him." Hiccup finally looked up from where he'd been staring at his shackles. "If you think I'll hand you what you need to know to make war on Berk - which could get him killed - you've got another think coming. So, stop. Just stop. I'm too tired for this."

"So you don't think your dad would miss you?" said Alvin, picking up on the unspoken.

Hiccup closed his eyes. "My dad...my dad will. He will." It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself, though. Being treated the way he'd been treated made him feel worthless and when he felt worthless, he wondered if other people really saw worth in him.

"He might actually, you know, but it'd probably have more to do with not wanting to lose you after what happened to your mother. Bitterness over my taking away someone else from him."

Hiccup's eyes flicked open. "What are you - ?"

"I wanted her. She was impressive - a real prize, like I said. But of course, she was in love with your father. Tried kidnapping - the good old-fashioned way of courting a lady Viking - but she wasn't too happy with it. All I got for it was this scar. Oh, and exile from your dear ol' dad."

"I don't understand -"

"I heard her ship was lost at sea. Y'see, your father decided exile wasn't enough and she took a crew and went out looking for me," said Alvin. "We were raiding Berk's allies, attacking your ships. She almost caught me once or twice - least 'til that storm hit."

There was a feeling that was creeping and crawling through Hiccup's gut. It was unfamiliar and burned red-hot and he thought it might possibly be rage.

Maybe even hatred.

"Thing of it is, I'm not telling you this because I think it'll convince you to tell me what I want to know," Alvin went on. "I'm telling you this for two reasons: one, so you understand that I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of every single one of Stoick's family dying. 'Orribly. Bit disappointed I couldn't contribute more with you mother, matter-of-fact. And two -"

He leaned in closer to Hiccup.

" - your dad didn't tell you because it's a bit of a Viking tradition for a son to satisfy a blood feud if his father won't. He didn't want you to know because he knew if you ever tried that you wouldn't stand a chance. Not only has he never trusted you with a lick of responsibility before now - and look at how that worked out - he didn't even trust you enough to tell you why your mother died! Your dragon might care about you lad, might trust you, but I wanna make it abundantly clear on one thing - your dad doesn't."

It was skewed thinking, that it all meant something about how his father felt about him, but his thinking was already skewed by the pain and disgust and all the other awful feelings he'd been forced to endure so far. One more awful feeling was easy to slip into the mix.

Hiccup's expression was blank now and his insides felt about the same way.

"There we are. That's exactly where I wanted to get you," said Alvin, and he turned to Savage. "Get the bucket and fill it with cold water - I'm thinking dunking next. It's time to get back to work."

"Gods, I love my job," said Savage happily, because he wasn't called 'Savage' for nothing.

* * *

"Something's been bothering me," Astrid said to Stoick, as the Vikings got ready to leave at first light to continue their search.

It'd been niggling at her before she'd fallen asleep and it was still niggling at her this morning. It had niggled her off and on during the entire search.

"What has?" Stoick asked her and then he was immediately listening.

"Trader Johann. He was really nervous when he was talking to us."

"He'd just nearly been seen by the Outcasts," Gobber pointed out. "That's enough to make anyone nervous."

"Yet their ship was nowhere to be seen," said Astrid. "He also said he saw Hiccup tied to the mast, but that it was foggy enough that the Outcasts hadn't seen him. How could it be both? Either there wasn't good visibility or there was."

Stoick thought about this carefully. "You think he might have lied to us?"

"I'm not sure," said Astrid, "but something doesn't feel right about it and I only just figured out what was bothering me this morning."

"There's no way to know for sure and if he did, it's difficult to figure why he'd do it, but I'll keep in mind," said Stoick. "But there's no way we can turn back now to talk to him."

"What if he pointed us in the wrong direction, though?" Astrid pointed out. "What if we've been searching all this time and the reason we haven't found anything is -"

"Stoick!" called Bertha. She was standing on a rock and pointing out to see. "Look!"

Far, far off, barely visible, was smoke rising up from a fire. It was nearly impossible to see on the horizon.

"We must have fallen just short of it last night," Stoick nearly growled, frustrated that they'd been so close without realizing. Fortunately, they'd put out their fire before daybreak.

"Everyone, up in the air and be ready for orders."

The Vikings all took to the air on their dragons and headed in the direction of the smoke. As they flew in closer, Stoick called out, "Astrid, Toothless is made for stealth. Do you think you can you do a fly-by to see what's down there without being seen?"

"On it," said Astrid with a nod. It helped that she had one of Hiccup's spyglasses since it had been tucked in his gear.

Astrid and Toothless did a flyby around the edges of the island so far up that the people on the island would have trouble spotting them, and used the puffy clouds that were there for occasional camouflage.

After getting a good eyeful of the island, she flew back to where the others were circling.

"It's definitely an Outcast ship and some of them have set up camp there, but I don't see Hiccup or Alvin and Savage on the beach. They might be in the forest."

Stoick rubbed the bridge of his nose, mulling over everything that had happened so far - and over what Astrid said earlier.

True to his nature as chief, he was smart enough to avoid waltzing right into the trap that had been set, but when he realized it was a trap, when he realized that they'd been duped, he let out an inarticulate noise of frustration.

"They tricked us. It's a trap. They probably have catapults hidden in the woods."

"You think it was the old bait and switch?" Gobber asked from where he sat on Thornado behind Stoick, realizing what Stoick was realizing just now.

"Johann was nervous, wasn't he? What better reason to be nervous than the fact your ship has a bunch of Outcasts below deck - and a hostage, come to that? He probably would've said anything if it meant avoiding getting himself and Hiccup killed." He shook his head and then clenched his fists, looking as if he wanted something to punch. "How could I have fallen for it, Gobber?"

"Trust and hope are sticky things sometimes," Gobber pointed out. "We trusted Johann and he gave us what looked like a clear direction to fly in."

It looked as if the only thing stopping Stoick from letting out a yell of fury was the fact that it could possibly be heard in the distance by the Outcasts on the island.

"Stoick," said Bertha, "wait just a moment. What if we catch some of the Outcasts, question them -"

"They could tell us complete lies and send us on another wild goose chase. And if the island's got catapults hidden in the brush..."

"What if we managed to sneak onto the island somewhere?" Astrid asked. "Grabbed one of them and -"

"Did they have lookouts?" Stoick asked her pointedly.

Astrid's shoulders sank. "All over."

"Wait, wait, the gel has the right idea," said Bertha, who was going over one of the maps she'd brought. "That's Devil's Mouth island. There's a cave there that goes below sea level and opens up not far out to sea. We've got the dragons, don't we? They move fast, they can see in the dark, and the tunnel's relatively straight. If any of them can swim and the rider can hold their breath long enough, the Outcasts won't be expecting someone coming up out of the cave in the middle of the island. They might even be able to sneak up on them and hear them talking about where your boy was taken without even being seen."

"I'll do it," Astrid immediately volunteered.

"Actually, uh," Snotlout said, from where he was hovering behind Astrid. "I was - I was thinking maybe I would."

The entire group turned to stare at him.

"Look, it'll be, like, dangerous, right? And Astrid would be flying Toothless. I don't think Hiccup would be happy if, you know, his dragon got hurt or the girl he likes who secretly likes me better got hurt trying to find out where he is."

Astrid rolled her eyes at the last part.

"I mean, he's a dweeb sometimes but Astrid was right the other night about how he's been here for us and we haven't been there for him - and that's not what a tribe does, right? I was one of the people that got him into this. I should - I should do something to help get him out. And Hookfang is a really good swimmer."

"This isn't a joke, son," Stoick said. "They could kill you. Or worse."

"Yeah, but that giant dragon that was gonna eat us all could've killed Hiccup, too. Didn't stop him. Losing a leg didn't even stop him from running around doing cool stuff to help the village."

"Snotlout, I -" Astrid was shocked. "I didn't realize you had anything resembling depth as a human being."

"Get used to it, babe," said Snotlout with a wink and Astrid audibly gagged.

"Hey, wait, I wanna have depth," said Tuffnut. "You're making me look bad. I'm gonna go too; move over so I can hop on your dragon with you. I don't wanna have to bring my sister."

"Boys, listen," said Stoick. "This is -"

"This is what Hiccup would do for us," Tuffnut pointed out. "I'll go with Snotlout 'cause it'll be easier for him to not get snuck up on with two sets of eyes." A pause. "It is 'two sets,' right? When talking about eyes, you don't have to talk about them all individually?"

Snotlout moved up a bit to make room for Tuffnut and the other boy hopped off the neck of his dragon head onto Hookfang's back.

Stoick rubbed his face, clearly having trouble with deciding if they should go.

"Look, chief, we messed up. Big time," said Snotlout. "Bertha's house was a wreck when we went in there so there must have been a big fight. If we'd been there like we were supposed to, we would've heard it and been able to get help. We gotta fix it."

"I think you should let them go, sir," said Fishlegs. "He has a point about the hydrodynamic properties of the Monstrous Nightmare. It might be one of the only dragons we have that can possibly move fast enough to get through the cave before its rider drowns. Toothless is at a disadvantage because of the prosthetic tail. Steering will be even more difficult and Astrid isn't as experienced with his rig as Hiccup."

"Plus, I can hold my breath for a really long time," said Snotlout.

"Me too," said Tuffnut. He poked Snotlout in the back. "But you know that. Because I'm better at it than you."

" - And these two idiots have breath-holding contests until they pass out," pointed out Ruffnut.

"Alright," said Stoick finally. "Don't fight them, though, don't be seen. You're only to get close enough to listen and see if they mention where the other ship went. You also need to take stock of the weapons on the island, catapults, anything they might have hidden in the brush. You've got two hours. If you take longer than that, we're going in after you - but keep in mind that means you'll be caught between the Outcasts and the rest of us. Not a good place to be."

"Understood, sir," said Snotlout.

Bertha flew over and showed the the boys the map. "See this here. That's going to be a rock shaped a bit like a barrel. The opening to the cave is about ten feet to the right of it, under the water. Probably only about thirty feet down. The cave runs straight. There might be offshoots but they'll be smaller than the main tunnel. You should be able to tell they aren't where you're supposed to go because the main tunnel'll be so much larger. The cave itself opens up in the forest, not far from the beach."

"Okay, cool," Said Tuffnut. "Barrel. Tunnel to the right. Hold our breaths a really long time. Only got two hours or we'll probably die horribly in a fiery explosion because of the dragons and the catapult fire from both sides fighting. (Which would be cool.) Got it."

With that, Snotlout urged Hookfang on and they flew around the island to the side where the tunnel opened up.

"Just checking to make sure this is real and I'm not having some crazy dream that doesn't make any sense, but are we really trusting Snotlout and my idiot brother with something this important?" asked Ruffnut.

"I think we are," said Astrid, bewildered.

"May the gods have mercy on our souls," Gobber added dramatically.

* * *

The days were blending together now but that was probably the lack of sleep. His thoughts were blending together but that was probably because he was going mad.

There were a few things he was sure of. One, was that he wasn't going to talk but that also meant he was probably going to suffer and die. Two, that if he did die, that at least Toothless would miss him. Three, that the others were coming for him - Astrid especially - but he wasn't sure why.

He wasn't sure why because he wasn't sure who he was anymore.

Something in his head had broken. Hiccup just couldn't tell if it was temporary, from the pain and the fear and the lack of sleep, or something permanent. He couldn't tell if it was something that would go away if he was safe and comfortable and had time to rest properly, or if it would never go away at all.

Half-mad, Alvin had said. Maybe closer to all-mad now. Maybe. Maybe all-mad.

He shivered in the box, breathing in each small, gasping breath and letting it out. His clothes were still wet from them dunking him. His throat was still raspy and the box was even more oppressive and stifling after he'd been half-drowned over and over.

There were no spiders this time. That was a plus.

The cramping of his legs was still there, the usual minus.

"Mad mad mad," he muttered to himself. "Hiccup the dragon conqueror. Hiccup the great big hero. Saves the day all the time - a new problem every week. You're so important. You think you're ready to be chief when entire islands laugh at you and call you an embarrassment. When your own father tells them the jokes they laugh at in the first place."

He laughed.

Then somehow that laughter wasn't laughter anymore and he wasn't sure when exactly the transition had happened.

He wept despondently and wondered why he thought he was ready for anything at all when he'd walked right into this. He wept and wondered why he had ever thought he was someone, that he could be important, that he could matter. People who mattered didn't wind up locked up in little boxes. People who mattered weren't small, they didn't get hurt like this, and they didn't cry in the dark.

"What delightful sound is that reaching my ears?" came Alvin's muffled voice outside. "Is that crying? Finally?"

The box opened and Hiccup gulped in the fresh air greedily. His efforts to pull it into his lungs were hampered by the fact that he was sobbing uncontrollably.

He was thrown on the floor and he saw vague, blurred, hulking shapes around them, heard their laughter. The blurriness made it easy to see everyone else who had ever laughed at him in his life standing in their places.

"There's a way to make it end, lad," said the brown blob with Alvin's voice.

"I won't," Hiccup said between sobs. "I won't."

And as miserable as he was, as disoriented as he was, as broken as he was now, he wouldn't.

"Oh, but you see, the stakes are different this time. It's not just you you've got to worry about. Savage, bring him along. We're gonna go say hello to our new dragon trainer."

"Dragon trainer...?" Hiccup muttered.

Hiccup was shackled again, picked up and flung over Savage's shoulder and carried for a while until he was outside. He took in the sight of the sky, eagerly, knowing that he might not see it again.

He was dumped against a railing that was wrapped around what looked like a ring much like the training ring back home. There were chains in a net over top so that something that could fly wouldn't be able to escape and massive doors that were clearly holding back something large.

"If you toss me in," Hiccup said, "I'm not going to train a dragon. I'll let it eat me instead before I show you how to do it."

"Ah, but will you let it eat him?"

A door was opened and a man all in blue was shoved into the ring.

"Wait, no, please -" the man said, pounding against the door when it was closed.

Hiccup shut his eyes tight, wincing.

"An honest trader, minding his own business before he was caught up in all this, a man who's never done a bit of harm to your people. Are you willing to let an innocent man die?"

"I get it. I get it. Break me down, make me feel terrible, and then toss me into a situation where I have to choose between saving my tribe and actually being terrible and letting an innocent man get eaten." Hiccup shook his head. "Well done. I don't get to walk out of this the same, do I. I get to either betray my tribe or let someone die when they don't deserve it."

"Life's one difficult choice after another, lad. There's even more of 'em when you've got a conscience. S'why I'm glad I haven't got one, myself."

"Hiccup, is that you?" Johann called when he saw Hiccup leaning bonelessly against the railing. "Are you alright, lad? Alvin, what have you done to him?!"

"Look at that, indignation on your behalf. Worry for your well-being, too. Guess that makes this one a bit more of a head-scratcher. Is one man with your village? Better question: Is your village worth one man?"

One of the larger doors opened up and a Nadder walked out.

"Oh gods," said Johann, backing away to the other side of the ring.

The Nadder noticed the movement, craning its head, evaluating whether Johann was predator or prey or something else. The markings were familiar to Hiccup.

It was one of their dragons, a Berk dragon. Not one of the ones that was owned by a particular rider; just one of the ones that had joined the colony on Berk for the food and free scritchings.

"You're using our dragons," he said, eyes wide. "The ones without riders."

"They stray farther from the island," said Alvin, "and already come partially trained. We just need a little more information to go the rest of the way there."

"Oh gods," said Johann again down in the pit. There was a broken spear that was still left in the ring and he picked up the end with the blade. The Nadder's wings flapped in alarm, her tail spikes raised, and she shrieked out a warning cry in response to the threat.

"Looks like it's angry," said Alvin.

Their dragons. They were using their dragons. Berk dragons. The riderless ones that they had trouble tracking. Berk dragons that were familiar with Berk riders and other Berk dragons...

Hiccup closed his eyes and leaned his head against the bars.

"Hiccup, you know how to train these beasts, don't you?" said Johann nervously. "I'd be much obliged if you lent me a bit of a hand here."

Hiccup didn't answer. The growling of the Nadder grew louder.

"What do I do? Hiccup!" Hiccup winced at the desperation in Johann's voice. "Hiccup, please!"

Hiccup opened his eyes.

"Johann, I need you to trust me. I need you to do every single thing I say. Do you understand? The first thing you need to do is drop that spearhead right now."

"He wants the dragon training knowledge from you, doesn't he? How do I know you aren't telling me the wrong information?"

"You brought me books my whole life. Ink so I could draw. Stories about the rest of the world. I wouldn't have met Toothless and learned to train dragons if I hadn't read that book on physical forces I got from you two years ago so that I figured out how to build my bola-thrower. You took five spyglasses from me when you didn't even want the one. You're a good person, you're honest, and you don't deserve this and I'm not going to let you die or Alvin is right about me being nothing. So please, please listen and drop the spear-head."

Johann dropped it. The Nadder, which had been looking like she might charge, started to calm down slightly.

"Now move away from it, slowly. Dragons are used to violence from humans. Weapons scare them. If you put distance between yourself and things like weapons, helmets, things they associate with violence, they're more likely to trust you."

Johann moved away, slowly. The Nadder started to calm down now and she was looking at him with more curiosity than hostility now.

"Now you have to calm down. They can smell fear and can tell when people are agitated. They think agitation could mean a possible attack. If you're calm, she'll stay calm."

Johann visibly took a few deep breaths and Hiccup leaned against the bars and held out a shackled hand as far as it could go while shackled. It was shaking so much that the chains were jangling slightly. .

"You need to hold out your hand like this. Don't go to her. Let her come to you."

Johann nodded and held out his hand in the direction of the Nadder.

"Nadders are vain and they can understand human speech a little. Keep your voice calm. Tell her it'll be alright. That you won't hurt her. Tell her you think she's pretty."

The Nadder was inching closer to Johann now in little darting movements.

"Uh, hello there, you gorgeous reptilian creature, you," Johann said awkwardly. "My, you have the loveliest of scales, my dear."

Then there was that moment. Hiccup saw it, the moment that the Nadder looked in Johann's eyes and he looked in hers and the air changed, and the two of them saw the fear that was in the other, and one recognized something human and the other recognized something dragon, and then the Nadder was pressing her snout in Johann's hand.

He started to give her scritches, which she accepted blissfully, and Hiccup saw her start to relax, into body language that read as affectionate and playful.

"My word, look at you, you beautiful thing. What a lovely girl you are," Johann went on, now scritching her with both hands, clearly as taken with the dragon as she was with him. "An absolute marvel! And to think, we might have come to blows - or bites in your case. But there's no call for that, is there."

"To - to ride her, just climb on up. When they trust you, they trust you. They'll let you touch them and she'll figure out what you're aiming for once you're up there," Hiccup said.

"No need for that," said Alvin suspiciously. "'E's not going anywhere."

"You need to know how to get them to fly, don't you?" Hiccup pointed out. "There's no point...anymore. In... in holding back. I just want it to end. So I'll give you everything you need to know, so it - so it can end."

Hiccup leaned against the bars again, hopelessly, and looked out into the ring, as Johann climbed up on the dragon's back.

"That's the kind of cooperation I was hoping for," Alvin said. "You won't regret it, lad. Well, that's a lie, you will, but it'll certainly end alright. Now, how do you get them to fly where you need them to go?"

"It takes a few simple instructions, especially if you're using our dragons, since even the ones without riders still have some training. For instance: FLAME UP!" Hiccup suddenly shouted.

The Nadder panicked at the loud noise and instinctually followed the instructions, looking upward at the chains that made up the roof of the ring, wanting to get to the open sky. Her flames, more than hot enough to melt metal blasted the chains apart. It seemed that she'd always had the capacity to escape, just not the logic necessary to figure out how to, but with Hiccup guiding her, she had a clear path to freedom.

"NOW FLY!" Hiccup yelled and the Nadder took to the air. Johann bellowed out a cry of surprise and held on for dear life as the Nadder shot up through the hole to freedom.

"Wait, pretty lil' lady, Hiccup needs -"

"No, go go go!"

The dragon was more inclined to listen to the little Viking she was familiar with than the strange man on her back, much as he'd been kind.

"Shoot them down! Now now now!" Alvin called to two of his lackeys, who pulled out their bows and aimed upward. But kicking forward with his good leg, Hiccup launched himself at the feet of the one, hitting him right in the knee with his shoulder. The burly Viking flailed and fell into the other burly Viking so that the arrow he released from his crossbow went wide.

Hiccup's expression was victorious as he disentangled himself from the legs of the one lackey, but it was replaced by one of pain when he felt a rough hand pulling him up by his hair. Alvin dragged him along as he moved forward to give more orders to his men.

"Don't worry, Hiccup! I'll bring back help!" Hiccup heard Johann calling over his shoulder from the distance as they soared off.

"Man the catapults! Don't let them get away!"

Even despite the crackling rounds of catapult fire, they did get away, eventually turning into a speck that disappeared into the distant sky.

Alvin rounded on Hiccup, pulling him up by his hair so that they were face-to-ugly-face.

"You're gonna pay for that, lad."

"Yeah, well, you're not gonna have long to make me do it now."

"Exactly. Considering I need to figure out how to train every type of dragon, that means I need to get as much information out of you as I can in a very, very short amount of time. Fortunately, I can get...creative."

With that, he tossed Hiccup over his shoulder and stormed back into the little fortress. Briefly they passed by an open door that had been closed all the other times Hiccup had passed - perhaps Alvin's yells had made whoever was inside run out and forget to close the door. In the room inside, there were wide windows thrown up to the outside, and it was clear the room was a small forge. There were bars of gold, a small hearth, and what looked like long molds of something, like they'd been trying to get the gold into a specific shape.

On the table were maps but Hiccup didn't get a good look at what they were maps of before they'd passed by the room.

Still, food for thought. Though it wasn't likely that he'd get to do anything with it.

Then they passed the threshold of the main room Hiccup had been kept in. Hiccup was thrown bodily to the floor, and he looked up to see Alvin glowering down at him, malicious intent in every feature of his face.

The Outcast slammed the door shut with and the noise it made was definitive, resounding, like the last sharp breath someone took before they died. Hiccup couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever see that door open again.

"So what do you think, lad? The thumbscrews, the rack, or my bare hands?"

Yeah, on the seeing the outside world again thing? All signs were pointing to a very solid no.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Wow. So, uh, that was a long delay in posting. Sorry about that, guys. I got a new job, one that has new lines of business opening up so getting settled has taken quite some time. I figured it was best to just focus on one fic, so I've been mostly working on the RotG stuff since it's cowritten and that means when I'm flagging someone else can take over. I'm hoping now that things are settled that I can work on this one more, especially since we still have some ways to go.

Not gonna lie, the new trailer had me feeling some fannish inspiration.

Anyway, just giving thanks to my bestie Kate, who helped me majorly by unleashing her inner clueless teenage boy and writing some of the Snotlout lines in the beginning of the chapter.

Also, I'd just like to note that I'm working on original novels. One of them is being written with aforementioned bestie Kate and might be up your alley if you like HTTYD. It has Vikings and samurai and a time-tossed anachronistic world that's anachronistic for Reasons, and magic swords and evil emperors, and criticisms of imperialism. If a folklore-heavy fantasy adventure with wise-crackin' teens trying to be heroes instead of misfits is up your alley, bump me an email to kirajlane at gmail and I'll add you to a mailing list. If we can't get it published in print, we're self-publishing, so lemme know if you'd be interested.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

"Does that look like a barrel to you?"

"If a barrel was the same shape as a boot, then yeah, it's a barrel."

"I don't see you finding it either."

"What about that?" Tuffnut pointed. "That rock over there?"

"Which one?"

"The one shaped like a barrel."

Snotlout spotted it, then turned to look over his shoulder at Tuffnut, glowering.

"The other one looked like a barrel, too. Like a boot barrel," Snotlout muttered under his breath. "Head on in, Hookfang."

The dragon flew them in closer to the water. Though the water was dark, they could see that the passageway was there to the right of the barrel just like Bertha had said. The waves that lapped at the rock were much darker than the rest of the ocean.

Snotlout looked nervously into the darkness of the abyss and then looked at the island. It was doable, holding their breaths long enough to get through, but only if they managed to get _straight_ through. If anything went wrong, if they went down a turning they weren't supposed to, they were going to drown in the dark. The prospect was almost terrifying enough to make him turn back.

Almost.

But that was what he always did. Acted tough, then chumped out at the last second. Even though he rationalized everything and made up excuses as to why he could do that and still be considered tough, deep down inside, there was a part of him that knew he wasn't. There was a part of him that had doubt. It certainly wasn't a conscious part of him or something he acknowledged, but it was there.

All he knew was that he felt guilty and he wanted to make it go away, and even despite years of taunting and competing with Hiccup, even though he still liked to rile him up most of the time, since Hiccup had saved the tribe he was almost starting to like him. Actually hanging out with him and teasing him instead of_ just_ teasing him, being led by him around in all kinds of crazy (and often fun) adventures, seeing Hiccup watch their backs over and over again - all those things had, inexplicably, fanned into flame the tiny little sparks of fondness that had been created when Hiccup saved them all. It was a tiny flame, not exactly a roaring fire, but it was there. Sometimes Hiccup drove him nuts with his smug "Look at me, I'm the idea guy that did a bunch of brave stuff" know-it-all-ey thing, but even so, Hiccup was the one that had taken his hand and made him reach out to Hookfang and he couldn't even imagine his life without Hookfang now. (Who else would set his pants on fire?)

He had to set things right and, like, while torture was totally awesome, the thought of puny little Hiccup being actually hurt by a bunch of crazy Outcasts didn't sit well in his stomach. If anyone got to torture Hiccup, it should be him, and only in the ways that were funny, like dunking him in the fish barrel next to the docks, not ways that had lots of blood and actual pain and stuff.

"You ready?"

"Totally," said Tuffnut. "By the way, I'm going to win the breath-holding contest this time. Only, if you lose, try not to lose too bad. 'Cause...then you'll be dead."

"Fat ch-" Snotlout was cut off mid-taunt as Hookfang dove underwater, so the rest of his taunt came out as mostly bubbles. Which meant that by the time Hookfang surfaced, he'd already embarrassingly lost the breath-holding contest.

"Yeah, that's, like. Exactly what you shouldn't do," said Tuffnut. "Or you'll die."

"Uh, clearly_ not_," Snotlout objected, "Or I'd be dead. Since I'm not and I survived on less air than you, I think I win this round.

"Nuh uh. But we probably shouldn't argue about it while Hiccup is getting brutally tortured. (Man, he has all the luck.) Okay, ready?"

Tuffnut inhaled and exhaled several times to get his breathing to slow down and Snotlout did the same. Then they both sucked in deep breaths, leaning in low so they wouldn't be swept off the dragon by the drag, and Snotlout slapped Hookfang gently on the neck so he knew to dive.

The dragon immediately rolled under the water. Though it used its massive wings to swim as thought it was flying through the air, the dragon moved somewhat differently under water, its sinuous neck rolling back and forth like a sea snake, it's finned tail helping it to steer. Fortunately, Fishlegs was right about the hydrodynamic properties of the Monstrous Nightmare and they made good time. Snotlout was scared at first that they wouldn't be able to see in the tunnel, but to his relief, it was packed with little fish that had strange phosphorescent lights on the sides of their bodies. It gave them just enough light to see that Bertha was right. The path was indeed relatively straight. Snotlout briefly wondered how she'd even known, but considering the chieftainess had swam from island to island after being shipwrecked she seemed the type to be able to swim in underwater caves without dying.

Probably for fun, knowing her. She'd probably explored the surrounding islands just for the heck of it.

Even though Hookfang made good time, Snotlout's lungs were starting to ache as they reached the other end of the tunnel and he was starting to panic just a bit, but the dragon darted up through the end of the tunnel and broke through the surface of a pool of water to sweet, life-giving air.

Exhaling the breath he'd been holding, Snotlout sucked in deep breaths of cool cave air and in the half-dark, he heard Tuffnut doing the same next to him. When they both caught their breath, he heard Tuffnut chuckle a little chuckle.

"I can't believe our helmets stayed on."

"I know, right?" Snotlout rolled onto his back in the water, sucking in sweet gulps of air. "I figure, though, if I never take mine off, maybe after enough time it might fuse to my head. I've been sleeping with it on."

After they'd caught their breath, Snotlout patted Hookfang on the nose and told him to stay there and they started to make their way out of the cave.

"So what's the plan?" asked Tuffnut as they peeked out of the cave's entrance into the forest from behind some rocks. "We need one of those, don't we?"

"Personally, I think plans are overrated. They take too long to make and they can still go wrong. You know what's a better idea? Just doing what doesn't suck. Let's go do that."

"Okay, cool."

With that, the two of them carefully and quietly made their way out into the woods, keeping an eye out for Outcasts. They had to make sure they weren't seen but also had to find some to spy on. In a fit of stupidity that was somehow silently relayed to each other (possibly via some sort of stupidity osmosis) they both uprooted a bush and starting walking along using them as cover. Naturally, neither gave any thought to how moving bushes would look to the enemy.

They did find the enemy quickly enough. In a clearing ahead was the flickering light of a fire, and a group of scar-faced, rough-looking Outcasts sitting around it. The two creeped as close as they could to the clearing and the moment it seemed like one of the burly Vikings was looking in their direction, they set them down.

Then they listened.

"'Ey, anyone got any salted herring left? I'll trade you, uh... I know I've got something."

"Nothing that'd be a fair trade."

One of the Vikings was picking at his teeth with a small knife.

"How much longer do you think it's going to be?"

"I'unno. 'Til the Berk Vikings attack and we ambush 'em or Alvin sends someone back with orders for us to leave. Which he might. They might have figured out the ruse."

"Still, even if they have, they'll never find where the boss and the others are hiding the boy."

"Too right. No one would ever look there."

"Where?" Snotlout hissed, but one of the Outcasts suddenly looked up as if he'd heard him, and he immediately snapped his mouth shut.

"You 'ear something?"

All the Outcast's sat and listened for a little while and Snotlout and Tuffnut both froze in place, not making a single sound.

Eventually one of them shrugged. "You're hearing things, you are."

"What d'you think the boss is doing to the little runt?"

"Dunno but you know how creative he can get. Remember Cramknock the Crusty?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember what was left of him?"

All the Vikings laughed dark little laughs at that.

"After that boy outsmarted the boss, he's probably in for worse."

Where they hid in the bushes, Snotlout briefly closed his eyes and Tuffnut's mouth set in a thin, little line.

"I'm surprised 'e's held up this long. In any case, we should be called back by the boss soon. No chance they thought to look on Bloodsand Beach.

Snotlout and Tuffnut both shared a look of surprise. Bloodsand Beach and the island it was on was the site of a horrible Viking battle several hundred years before. It was thought to be cursed with the most horrible curse any cursed place had ever been cursed with, the kind of curse where you bled out of your eyeballs and your insides became outsides. Even Vikings like the Outcasts were superstitious enough to avoid going there. Case in point, one of them said:

"Brrr. I'm almost glad we got stationed here instead. That place gives me the willies."

They had Hiccup's location, so it was time to haul their butts out of their through the tunnel with Hookfang. Snotlout took a step back and seeing him move, Tuffnut started to do the same.

Neither of them stepped on a stick. That was always what happened in situations like these, someone stepped on a stick, the bad guys heard it, and everything got all tense and scary. They did make noise, but it had far more to do with the muskrat Tuffnut had eaten that morning not entirely agreeing with his stomach.

The sound of flatulence, loud enough for any Viking to be proud of, rang loud and clear through the woods.

Snotlout rolled his eyes skyward, as if beseeching the gods to spare his life (and spare him from the stench), as Tuffnut stood there looking pretty proud of himself. If they were going to die because he let one rip, at least an impressive one was ripped that day.

"Did you 'ear that?"

If they ran, the Vikings would just hear them and give chase. If they fought, they'd probably just die.

So Snotlout scrunched his face up frantically and tried to do that thing that some of the others sometimes did: that whole thinking thing. Hiccup was the best at, but Fishlegs and Astrid could do it, too, and it meant they figured out that third way of doing something besides "run from it" or "hit it," so even though thinking was far, far beneath a Viking such as himself, Snotlout gave it a shot.

His eyes popped up again and he suddenly made a snorking noise.

"What are you doing?" Tuffnut whispered.

"Making them think we're not people," Snotlout whispered back, and then he went back to snorting noises. Tuffnut shrugged to himself, realizing that yes, the Outcasts might buy the idea of wild animals being flatulant and joined in, snorting and snorking away.

"Sounds like some wild boar."

"We could use some lunch."

"Not worth the trouble around these parts. They'll take a piece of you if you try to take a piece of them."

Still snorking, Snotlout moved away in the underbrush, waving for Tuffnut to follow him. Eventually they were out of range of the camped out Outcasts, stopped snorting and broke into a run towards the cave.

"Bloodsand Beach," Snotlout said. "Why would they set up their base there? By now, all their eyeballs probably fell out."

"Maybe the Outcasts want to scare all their enemies by having big, gaping awesome holes where their eyeballs used to be," said Tuffnut as they climbed back on Hookfang's back.

"Then how could they still fight if they can't see?"

"If you saw someone walking towards you all cursed, with no eyeballs, and blood oozing down their face, would you stay and fight?" Tuffnut asked.

"You, sir, have an excellent point," said Snotlout consideringly as they got ready to hold their breaths.

Then it was back into the cold and the near-dark, through the tunnel lit by fish that looked like stars. As the water rushed past him and over him, Snotlout could only hope this would make up for not having Hiccup's back the first time, so that the feeling that was still chewing at the bottom of his gut would finally go away.

* * *

"Get the men together," said Alvin as he walked out into the courtyard where his men were.

"Finally got him to sing, boss?" asked Savage, grinning.

"Like a starling," Alvin bragged. "But we haven't got much time before someone tries to come to his rescue."

"Did you kill him?"

"Can't kill my only hostage, can I?" Alvin pointed out. "Besides, there's other species of dragons out there besides the ones we're training 'ere. If we come across any to add to our arsenal that are too hard for us to figure out on our own, we'll need the lad. And he won't dare hold back now. Not if he knows what's good for 'im. If we can hold on to 'im, we should."

* * *

"They might be on dragons by now, Stoick," said Bertha, as the riders geared up and got ready to fly out.

"They might be," Stoick said, his expression making it clear that he didn't want to consider the implications of that, of the fact that Hiccup might have broken, might have been hurt enough to break for that to happen by now. "But if they are, they're not as experienced with flying with them as we are. Even with how little time you've had, you've picked it up better than they'll have time to."

"And so have I," said Johann, getting up on his newly adopted Nadder with the improvised saddle he'd made.

"Johann," Stoick said, taken aback. "This will be dangerous and you're not a fighter. You don't have to -"

"Ah, but what the lad did to save my life was dangerous, your grace. Brunhilda's not going to let anyone else ride her after how the Outcasts treated her - she's taken quite the liking to me, you see - and you need every dragon in the air you can manage. She and I have decided that we owe him a debt and I'm not a man that reneges on his debts. We're going to bring your boy home."

Stoick was very obviously moved by Johann's decision and all he could do was nod gratefully, as he turned back to Thornado.

Snotlout and Tuffnut had rushed back with the information and they'd flown to a nearby island to get themselves battle-ready and spread around supplies they needed. It had been decided that Astrid was going to hold into the things Hiccup might need, like his false leg, a change of clothes they'd borrowed from someone in the village before leaving on the rescue mission, a little medicine kit with splints and bandages and medicinal herbs, and a blanket. They were all packed and secured tightly in a small saddle bag they'd managed to rig up.

Toothless was padding at the ground impatiently as she finished up, eyes narrowed, his body completely full of tension.

"Soon," Astrid said quietly to the Night Fury, rubbing his nose. "We'll have him back with us soon."

As soon as they were ready, the Vikings took to the air on their dragons and hoped against hope all of their searching hadn't been in vain.

* * *

The Outcasts waited, their island shrouded in clouds of dense fog that had been produced by their dragons flaming the water. The dragons were still somewhat antsy, not entirely used to their new masters, but surely, they had the advantage here. They were more familiar with the island and there were places to hide in the rocks so they could ambush the Berk Vikings as soon as they showed up.

"Where are they?" asked Savage.

"They'll be 'ere any minute now," said Alvin. "Mark my words, they're stupid enough that they'll go charging right in after one of their own. When they do, they won't even know what hit 'em."

He was right about one thing.

They were going to charge in.

He was juuust slightly wrong about which party wouldn't know what hit them.

The loud shriek that came of the Night Fury's attack only echoed down out of the clouds seconds before the first plasma blasts struck, taking out three of the Outcasts' catapults. Before the Outcasts could even turn their own nervous, doubtful dragons to aim, the Night Fury and his rider pulled up out of their dive and rocketed back up to the cloud cover.

"You were sayin', boss? About them not knowing what hit 'em?" Savage said wryly.

"Shut up! Everybody, up in the air!" Alvin barked.

* * *

Astrid was nearly gleeful as she flew back up through the cloud cover with Toothless. She and Stoick had come up with the plan together, with Bertha helping with a few considerations they hadn't thought of. One of the major advantages they had was their experience with flying dragons.

"They're not going to know how to use space," Astrid had said when they'd hovered an island over and decided their plan of attack. "I remember one time when we were all racing and it looked like we'd lost Hiccup but right near the finish he came up from underneath us out of nowhere. We didn't think of looking anywhere but ahead. They're still going to be thinking in left or right, not up and down. We can use that."

"Aye. Good thinking, Astrid," the chief had said and then he and Bertha had worked out a plan.

Astrid went in for another dive, this time from another spot in the clouds. This time was a little more dangerous because the Outcasts were ready for her, but she'd gotten the hang of Toothless' tail-rig by now and she was already a talented flier in her own right. While she wasn't as good as Hiccup on Toothless as good as she normally was on her own dragon, she and Toothless were still able to dodge all the fireballs and catapult shots sent their way; it seemed nothing could touch the Night Fury's speed. After Toothless' white hot bolts of flame destroyed the remaining catapults, the two of them careened back up into the cloud cover again.

"The catapults are down!" she called out to the Vikings flying in range. "Time for stage two!"

She patted Toothless' neck. "Toothless, you know what to do.

The dragon snorted in affirmation, letting out a single guttural cry and then another, a noise that carried out over the distance and reached the ears of the Vikings and dragons farther away.

Out around the island, Astrid saw the fog the Outcasts had created around their island thicken and start to move inland as the great wingbeats of Hookfang and Barf and Belch blew it inland (Bertha's idea). If Alvin and the Outcasts wanted fog, they'd get fog, but it wasn't going to be a convenient barrier around their island. They weren't going to be allowed any visibility either. Astrid heard the shouts of anger and confusion start moving from below up into the cloudbank as Alvin's men starting wising up to the fact that they needed to train their eyes upward as well as out to the borders of their island.

That meant it was time for the other part of stage two, which was fairly simple. While the Outcasts were drawn upward to search for them in the mists and clouds, the Berk Vikings were going to dive down and fire at them from underneath. Flying silently with Toothless to the edge of the Outcast's fort, Astrid and the dragon dove straight down, pulling up around ground level. She could see the shapes of the Outcasts' dragons passing through the cloud wrack above, dim shadows backlit by the sun shining above the cloud cover.

Toothless blasted bolts of his lightning-like fire above and not long after, the dragons came crashing to the ground. Fortunately, they looked injured rather than dead. Astrid didn't want them hurt, if possible and she knew Hiccup would be upset if innocent dragons were hurt in the course of rescuing him. When she got a better look at the familiar markings the dragons had, that held even more true - these were Berk dragons, the owner-less dragons that were part of the colony that lived on the island.

It made sense when Astrid thought about it. Even though they were riderless, they were more trusting of humans than wild dragons and half-trained already. They also strayed farther from Berk, which had likely made them easier to catch.

Before the downed Outcasts could give away their position, she and Toothless swooped back up into the thickest part of the fog again. Now, all around them, she heard the vicious sounds of battle; the Berk Vikings were attacking the Outcasts much like Hiccup had attacked the Green Death - with hit and run tactics, coming at them from every direction. Astrid itched at the thought of the fight she was missing, but Stoick had entrusted her with a much greater responsibility than keeping the Outcasts distracted.

Besides, she was probably going to see some fighting even without having to jump into the aerial fray.

Astrid heard Stoick's dragon roar his deafening roar, once, twice, then three times in a row.

Stage three now. It was time for her to move. As she and Toothless dove out of their evasive patterns, Astrid heard Alvin's cheerful voice ringing out over the clash of the fighting.

"What are we even fighting for, Stoick?" he called out. "The dragon knowledge is mine and even if you win the battle, ol' Alvin's going to win the war."

"You know why I'm here!" Stoick's voice rang out powerfully from overheard, like a thunderclap. "I'm here for my son!"

"Then you came a long way for nothing. The lad's dead."

"Liar!"

"Awright, so maybe I am lying. E's not dead, but 'e may as well be. Gotta give 'him credit, he was made of sterner stuff than I thought. Held out for quite a while - but he was still cryin' out for his daddy in the en -"

Alvin's voice was cut off by Stoick's roar of fury. Astrid heard the shrill screech of whatever dragon Alvin was riding and the sound of flames crackling through the air.

It was okay that Stoick was losing his cool; it would keep Alvin distracted. That was why he chose Astrid to take on the most important part of the mission rather than doing it himself, because he'd known it would take very little to wind up...compromised.

The only problem was that Astrid was close to being compromised, too. After hearing that, she couldn't stop herself from imagining Hiccup hurt and scared and crying out for his father in the dark. Imagining it seemed to make the world turn red as if it was bleeding at the edges and all she could hear was her heartbeat in her ears, concussive like the beats of a dragon's wings.

Everything that happened after that was something of a blur. She was aware of spotting a ramshackle little base and urging Toothless into a landing. She was aware of landing on her feet and pulling her axe out of its sheath at her back. She was aware of the ground flying underneath her boots as if she was hovering over it, her surroundings a blur of fog and movement.

The rest was a little...fuzzy. There were guards, she was sure of that, but then there was kicking and the ker-thunk of her axe and then there weren't guards anymore. Toothless may have been biting something and growling next to her, taking part in the whole nebulous guard removal process, adding to the disappearing act. Toothless looked up just as tongues of fire hit the ground next to him, aimed haphazardly by inexperienced dragon riders and then Astrid looked up too, her hand going to the extra knife she'd added to her belt for the rescue mission. A single blast of fire from Toothless downed a dragon. A single quick flick of her wrist downed the Outcast, and she found, to her great confusion, that the knife wasn't in her hand anymore.

But the red was still there, pushing her forward, driving her towards the one thing she knew would make the red go away.

Another guard-post was stampeded through, crushed by the Night Fury's body and more guards wound up on the ground, no longer moving. As they both surged forward, finally getting to hurt the ones responsible for hurting Hiccup, for taking him to a godsforsaken rock with blood-cursed beaches in the middle of nowhere, Astrid let out a roar that almost sounded dragonish in its rage and Toothless let out a roar that almost sounded a little human in its concern.

What little conscious thought was left marked the moment for what it was - this was who she was when she really dug down deep. For all she could act tough and aloof, the ferocity she felt right now was her natural state, one that she knew could come forth when it was needed to protect family and friends and tribe - and Hiccup, someone who'd somehow squirmed his way into all those other categories and also made a little niche of his own.

Toothless stayed outside because he couldn't fit through the one door, but that was alright - someone needed to guard it, especially when there were other ways in. At least that was one entrance she didn't have to worry about enemies pouring in from.

More Outcasts fell with what felt like just a thought and she left them behind, groaning on the floor as she searched the rooms of the little fort. The last one was a place with spikes and chains and chairs that looked like they were made for the opposite of comfort, but she had no time to be horrified, no time to be sad, because Hiccup hadn't been in any of the other rooms and there was a box in this room that was big enough to hold someone Hiccup's size.

She bashed off the lock with her axe, threw open the lid, and saw a skinny body was folded up inside.

He was pale. He was so pale, his skin a waxen grey that was even worse than it'd been when they'd flown him to Gothi from Dragon Island. It was worse than when he'd been caught in the grips of a fever, delirious and drugged so he didn't wake up and feel the pain of his missing leg.

The fight went on around the outpost but the space around him felt impermeable and frozen in time just like her heart had suddenly frozen in her chest.

"H-Hiccup?" she said softly, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

His skin was clammy and cold and she felt as if she'd been stabbed.

So, not being one to beat around the bush, she reached into the box, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting, "WAKE UP!"

That jarred him awake and for a moment he struggled with her as if trying to get away, whimpering pitifully, but she lifted him up and out of the crate bodily and held him close to her until he stopped struggling.

"It's over," she said, her voice trembling, soft enough that she almost didn't recognize it. "We're going to take you home."

He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and it was made all the more difficult by the fact that one was swollen shut, but eventually he managed to blink his left eye open and roll it up to look at her face. Another whimper slipped past his lips but this one was one of relief.

His hand, bruised all over and shaking, reached up and brushed against her cheek and somehow between that and the look on his face, she knew what he was thinking, what he was too exhausted to say. If he'd been a closed book days before, in the hold of the ship, he was open now, and she could read every rune on the pages.

The words were: 'I knew you'd come.'

That was when the door burst open and Alvin stormed into the room. The rest was the red blur surging back in full force after it had started to dim, the rest happened so fast that, to her dying day, Astrid couldn't even remember all the details.

She knew there was a part where he said he was taking Hiccup to get more of the dragon-training knowledge from him and she'd put Hiccup down and gotten up to face him.

She knew there was a part where Alvin mocked her. "Do you really think a little lass like you can stop me?"

She knew that he took a swing at her with his axe.

The rest, though, the rest was a disorienting swirl of rage, of darting underneath the blow and slashing at his back, only just missing his vitals because he dodged. The rest was a blur of rolling and darting and moving, maneuvering him away from Hiccup. Weapons clashed against each other and Alvin cursed with each little cut she got in, cursed a each spatter of his blood on the ground, which was probably all the more irritating to him because he couldn't seem to spill any of hers.

It was a blur up until Stoick burst into the room, bellowing at her to get Hiccup out and then the red started to fade and she was moving without hesitation to unclasp her shoulder armor and toss Hiccup over her shoulder, carrying him with all the ease of carrying a small child. Yes, she wanted to kill Alvin. Yes, she'd been close to actually doing it, but that wasn't why she was here and even in her altered state, she knew that. All of the ferocity driving her was directed at what was most important to her and she carried it out of that room like a very precious sack of turnips.

Thanks to the other Vikings, Alvin's men were too distracted to fight her and thank to Toothless the way out was clear. She got Hiccup outside and over to Toothless, who bounded up towards his boy, whining in alarm at his limp form.

"He's alive, but we have to get him out of here as quick as we can," Astrid said, jumping on Toothless' back, lowering Hiccup off her shoulder and getting him situated in front of her, and stowing her axe in its strap at her back.

Toothless lunged forward and launched them into the air immediately, showing the same lack of hesitation to leave that she felt, and then they were over the tumult, the wind carrying the sound of clashing weapons and dragon fire up to them and then carrying them away.

The red had faded to a dull pink and the world started to resolve itself back into what it usually was rather than a blur of sight and sound and instinctual movement. He was unconscious again, shivering in her arms even though she had pulled him close and was trying to keep him as warm as possible with her body heat. She pulled the blanket she'd brought out of Toothless' saddle sack, careful to not let anything fall out before she buckled it up again, and wrapped it around the teenage boy bundled in her arms.

She finally understood what she'd had trouble understanding so far. The answers she was looking for in regards to one Hiccup Haddock had struck as if the gods had thrown the knowledge into her brain like a lightning bolt.

She had been afraid of the shaky feelings he caused in her because she was afraid they were un-Vikingly, or at least un-Vikingly in a way that took her personal definition of Viking into account, but that was stupid, because the shakiness in those feelings was from the restraint. It was like how someone's arm might shake if they were trying to hold their arm back from dropping a deadly blow while enraged. In the end, there was ferocity under the shakiness, a kind of ferocity any Viking could be proud of. It burned like the light of a forge and like the fires in the torch-statues around the island. It cut through everything like the sharpest axe and packed the same punch as the hardest bludgeon.

Now that she'd almost lost him-again-she realized how deep that ferocity ran and she knew, most importantly of all, that feeling it made her more of a Viking than ever.

"You're going to wake up," she told him as she held him, "and you're going to heal and you're going to be fine."

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and then rested his head against her shoulder.

"And then I promise you, Hiccup, I won't waste any more time. I promise."

* * *

Stoick matched Alvin blow for blow as they fought. A far off screech from Toothless, one that sounded more like "Time to go!" than distress, brought him some relief but did nothing to change his desire to see Alvin's head on a pike.

Stoick didn't consider himself an exorbitantly violent man - a violent one, certainly, like any good Viking was, but not exorbitantly so. He preferred to view killing - especially the killing of people (though dragons were being absorbed into that category) - as something that should only be done when it was absolutely necessary for survival. There was just less blood feuds that way.

He thought there was joy in battle itself, in the ebb and flow of blood through a warrior's veins, in the ever-shifting challenge of it, but he also thought a good Viking shouldn't take joy in the act of killing itself.

Alvin was now the exception. Stoick wanted him to die suffering and as he fought Alvin in the room his son had suffered in, he felt such things _shamelessly_.

"Now now, Stoick, where's all this anger coming from? 'Stoick's Little Disappointment' was what he's called in other tribes, innit? If you really cared about the lad, you wouldn't have told everyone and their Uncle Olaf that you couldn't wait to be rid of 'im. I was doing you a favor."

Stoick only let out a bellow of rage as he swung his hammer at Alvin's head, catching the edge of his helmet, the other Viking's quick dodge only just saving him from having his skull caved in. The blow sent Alvin reeling and it only made the Berk chief lay on the violence even harder.

He was not the kind of man whose anger made him lose focus. No, anger was a great motivator and Stoick had no trouble maintaining the steely resolve all the men and woman of his family line had managed during a fight - Hiccup included.

The thought of what had caused all this - him not acknowledging that last fact, making his son feel like he had something to prove - only stoked the fire. He knew how his son thought. He'd gotten better at figuring it out but didn't always understand the weight of Hiccup's thoughts right away, but he still understood now. Hiccup had gone to Hopeless to prove himself and he'd faced "Bertha" alone because he thought that was what Stoick would do.

It was his fault his son had suffered in this dark, ugly little room and his mistake in overlooking the tactic Alvin had used in switching the ships that had made his son suffer even longer.

His son was terrified of being a failure, of the world around him forcibly dragging him back to the days he was a nuisance under foot, and rather than reassuring him it wouldn't happen, rather than trusting him with the kind of responsibility Hiccup often used as a rope to rein himself in with, Stoick had cut him loose and shoved him in the direction of the Bog-Burglars with the hard-headed notion that he had something to prove.

Stoick's anger at Alvin was all that much more thunderously powerful because it was mixed together with Stoick's anger at himself, for yet again feeding into his son's insecurities when he should have known better that they were there, when he was responsible for their existence in the first place.

No force on Midgard could have stopped him now. The gods themselves could have swooped down from Asgard and planted themselves in front of him and he would have beaten them out of the way with the nightmarish chair the Outcasts had strapped his son to.

Since no gods were present, Stoick opted to relentlessly pummel Alvin with it instead, wielding it like a lopsided club in one hand and swinging his hammer with the other.

"Nothing to say?" said Alvin, after taking a blow to the face from the chair that was so hard a leg of it snapped off. He blocked Stoick's hammer with an axe blow.

"I have nothin' left to say to you," Stoick snarled. "All that's left is what I'm going to _do_ to you."

That was when Stoick threw the chair at Alvin, hitting him square in the gut. While he was still reeling, the Berk chief reached for some chains dangling against a wall and ripped them free of where they were bolted to the stone. When Alvin moved to strike again with his axe, Stoick whipped the chains around the handle and yanked the weapon clear from his hands.

He didn't have long to face his enemy unarmed, however, because the Outcast quickly recovered by picking up the steel poker resting with its tip in the fireplace and brought it down hard on Stoick's arm. The combination of the bone-breaking force and the burning pain from the white-hot tip made Stoick drop his hammer reflexively but it certainly didn't take him out of the fight. A swing of the chain caused Alvin to jump back and then Alvin swung the poker and Stoick swung the chain again with such force that when the two met, part of the chain shattered off and spin over to the floor and the poker bent in the middle and was ripped free from Alvin's hands.

Wrapping the remains of the chain around his fist, Stoick strode forward purposefully.

"Now, Stoick," said Alvin nervously, realizing that he'd perhaps underestimated his opponent's focus in this fight. "This the kind of example you want to set for your boy? He doesn't seem the type that's keen for the kill. What'll he think of dear ol' dad killing an unarmed man?"

"I don't know everything he'll think," said Stoick, punching Alvin soundly in the face with the chain-wrapped hand, before he even had a chance to duck. "But at least one thing he'll think is that you'll never. Be able. To hurt 'im. Again."

Punches became punctuation and the flurry of them sent Alvin's way were so rapidfire all he could was take them.

"S'all your fault," Alvin said, spitting out blood, trying to get a good hit in, but only managing to feebly block some of Stoick's blows. "All'a you! Because I was small. 'Cause I was _weak_ back then. And I was cleverer than the lot of you! That's why you hated me! You all _made_ me what I am!"

"We hated you because you were a low-life, rotten, thieving, lying, cheating pile of dragon dung! We were wrong in how we treated people who didn't fit our idea of what a Viking was supposed to be - but you didn't have to turn into this, Alvin. You didn't have to betray and try to ruin everyone you came across!"

"I had no other choice!" Alvin roared, finally driving Stoick back with a vicious elbow to the throat. "You have to _take_ respect when you're a Viking!"

"My son," Stoick wheezed, "_earned_ it. And he never once hurt a living soul - not in any way that couldn't be fixed." The chief laid into the Outcast once again, his breath back. "Don't stand here and tell me this is the only man you could've been! We did wrong by you now and again, but we still counted you as one of our own. It's no excuse - not when my son went through the same and is turning into a better Viking than either of us could hope to be!"

Stoick managed to finally - and brutally - beat Alvin to the floor.

Strangely enough, that was when the Outcast started to laugh.

"I missed that righteous outrage of yours, Stoick. Shame I won't get a chance to hear more of it."

That was when Stoick heard - and felt - a strange rumbling sound that seemed to be coming from the ground. The vibrations were strongest under his feet and instinct had him leaping to the side just in time to avoid the dragon that crashed up through the floorboards where he'd just been standing.

The Whispering Death. Stoick had caught glimpses of it in the aerial battle earlier but this was the first he'd ever seen on in all its sinister glory up close. The only other place he'd seen one was in the Dragon Manual. Apparently, Alvin was the only Outcast that had chosen a wild dragon instead of the strays from Berk.

"My new pet doesn't seem to like you."

The dragon's rotating rings of teeth whirred menacingly as it darted forward, trying to shred Stoick where he stood, but the chief's quick dodge meant it got a mouthful of the table instead.

Turning and hissing with malcontent, it fired a ring of fire at the Viking, but for someone as well-practiced as Stoick at dodging angry dragons, this was practically a child's game. Diving once more, he managed to snatch up his hammer from the floor as he rolled.

It was getting a little too crowded in here to keep this up - and a little a little too hot now that the place was going up in flames.

"Why don't we take this outside?" he growled.

Alvin was standing in front of the only window in the room, one with a shutter that was bolted shut, but it opened up easily enough when Stoick charged at him, causing them both to smash right through it - and part of the wall. Alvin took the brunt of the blow just as planned.

The Outcast had managed to pick up his axe again while Stoick had been distracted by the dragon so now the fight continued outside, the two Vikings meeting each other blow for blow, sparks dancing in the air as their weapons clashed against each other. The Whispering Death couldn't risk using its fire when Stoick was so close to its master, so it opted for circling around the two warriors in a sinuous dance, like a snake preparing to strike. Every so often, it darted in and tried to bite Stoick but every time it did, he managed to beat it back with a vicious hammer blow.

This went on until Alvin managed to get in close enough to snag the dragon's saddle with one hand and hoisted himself up to ride it. Now the fire the dragon blasted down at the Berk chief was relentless and Stoick was forced to retreat, running and dodging his way towards the cliffside. His eyes darted to look up in the air and then he put on speed, running straight for the edge.

"You're finished, Stoick! You may as well stand still and accept the inevitable," Alvin crowed.

Stoick kept running towards the cliff-side and when he reached the edge...he jumped.

Alvin's ugly face screwed up in confusion.

"...what."

That was when Thornado and Gobber dropped down from above in a sheer vertical dive where the chief fell.

They rose again over the cliffside, Stoick now safely on Thornado's back, and turned to face Alvin, the Thunder Drum letting out one of its deafening - and damaging - screeches in Alvin's direction. The Whispering Death dodges to the side and then it and its rider slipped away into the mists.

"I'm not sure I like these odds, Stoick. They're bit too even for my tastes," Alvin's voice echoed out of the fog. Thornado screeched his destructive cries in the direction the voice had come from but it didn't seem to hit its mark, because Alvin spoke again, this time from another direction.

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, anyway. Who knows, maybe it'll be back on Berk!"

Laughing, Alvin disappeared, his voice fading as he flew away.

"Hey, where'd they all go?" shouted Snotlout as the dragon and rider he'd been fighting slipped away into the fog.

"They're scattering!" Ruffnut called out.

"Heck yes they are, because we totally kicked their butts!" cried Tuffnut triumphantly.

Indeed, the Outcasts had all scattered, heading off in every direction - at least the ones that were still standing. (Quite a few weren't.) No doubt they had a meeting place planned in case of retreat. Tactically, it wasn't a good plan to go after them when they'd have to spread out to do it. There was too much potential of ambush, but even so, Stoick's desire for revenge almost had him giving the order anyway.

As if reading his mind, Gobber said quietly, "Stoick, we should get to Hiccup and Astrid. The Outcasts can wait - we'll track them down soon enough, but we need to make sure none of the Outcasts stumble on them before we get there."

"Right," Stoick breathed through gritted teeth. "Of course."

His next words were barked out so loud anyone flying over the island would hear them.

"All riders, move out! We're heading to our fall back point."

It was both the place Stoick wanted to go the most and the place he wanted to go the least. He needed to know if his son was alright - but was terrified of the possibility that he wasn't.

* * *

Astrid was not a gentle person. Gentle didn't protect the village and cave in the heads of enemies. She'd geared up for the war she thought she was inheriting from her parents at an early age and even with the dragon peace, she hadn't bothered to take that mental gear off. It fit her well. Even without the dragons to fight, there were plenty of battles out there - case in point, she'd (probably) killed her first enemies today.

She still wasn't sure how to feel about that and she could tell it was something she was going to have feelings about, but not now. That was for later when she was cleaning and sharpening her axe alone somewhere and trying to decide whether or not she should put notches in the handle to keep count or forget it ever happened.

For now she had other things to worry about and one of those things was being gentle when she just didn't _do_ gentle.

Somehow, she managed. She tended to Hiccup as if he was made of the most fragile crystal and tried not to think about how awkward it was to drag him around like a dead deer and pose him like some kind of human-sized rag doll. She also tried not to think about how awkward this was about to get, because first thing was first: the clothes had to go. They were filthy and reeked of sweat. Clearly the Outcasts had felt Hiccup should do as they did while he was there and forgo anything resembling a bath.

"Hiccup, I'm going to get you cleaned up, okay?" Astrid said to him, hoping he understood what was going on.

His only answer was a semi-coherent noise that she hoped was agreement.

They'd chosen this island as a meeting point for three reasons: its considerable distance from Bloodsand Beach (it'd taken four hours to get here, minus the few short stops she'd made on smaller islands to check Hiccup's condition), its terrain (which made it highly defensible), and because of the freshwater stream that came down from the mountains.

That stream was particularly handy now. Astrid carried Hiccup to it, bridal style, and put him down on the flat, rocky bank next to the water. Stripping off his clothes in a brisk and businesslike manner was not easy when they were stuck to him with sweat and he was flopping around limply like the sole purpose of his unconscious life was making her drop him.

She'd held onto greased pigs that were less slippery.

She'd held onto greased_ babies_ that were less slippery. (Long story, that one, and part of why she'd tried babysitting for someone else in the village a grand total of one time).

She grimaced as she almost dropped his torso against the ground but caught it just in time. Toothless narrowed his eyes at her.

"I don't see you helping," she protested.

Eventually, she managed, and when she did what she saw was the kind of thing that would reduce softer people than her to tears.

His skin was mottled with ugly, swollen bruises, already turning purple and blue and yellow. Lacerations and scrapes and even small burns marked his body. Most of the broken and bruised skin was on his arms and legs - and face - but she could tell Alvin and the Outcasts had gotten plenty of good hits into his stomach and chest, too. There were also countless little marks that looked like bug bites.

The world went tinged with pink again and something burned inside her when she saw that some of the bruises were in the shape of large fingertips.

Fortunately, the only things that seemed broken were a few of his fingers.

Just a few. Just a...

Toothless let out a low crooning noise of misery at the sight of how battered Hiccup was, snuffling around his face, and it helped Astrid to hear it because it felt right that someone made a noise like that over this and it wasn't going to be her.

"It's not that bad," she said to Toothless, pretending there wasn't a quaver in her voice. "It looks worse than it is."

She slipped off her boots. Hiccup winced as she hoisted him up and got him into the water, wading in fully clothed in the shallows and slowly lowering him in. Immediately, he started shivering and made an inarticulate noise of protest that didn't quite make it all the way to a sob She didn't blame him - their part of the world couldn't really be described as "balmy" and this island wasn't much warmer than Berk.

So she tried to make it quick, trying not to press down on his bruises as she wiped away the sweat and grime, as she washed the dead spiders out of his hair and tried not to think about how they'd gotten there.

Toothless splashed right in with them, letting out more worried noises and nosing at Hiccup. It turned out to be a help because she had something to prop the other teen's weight against as she cleaned him off.

Then she carried him out of the water and bundled him in the blanket. He shivered uncontrollably now as she dried him off and tended to his wounds (ignoring the little hisses that came out through his teeth), and dressed him in the extra clothes donated by the Bog-Burglars. They were too big for him.

"No surprise there," she muttered to herself, slipping her feet back into her boots.

The clothes made him look even smaller and frailer. When it came to the socks, it was a help, though, one normal Viking-sized sock meant for someone's foot was big enough to put over his stump of a left leg.

For a moment, she just looked at him, now dressed and still shivering where he lay, and decided that there was one thing that needed to happen now rather than wait for later. Pulling it free from where it had been stowed in Toothless' saddle-sack, she knelt down and gently strapped on his false leg.

It had been taken away from him to make him crawl.

He was going to need to walk upright again.

Toothless helped her build a fire, which dried out the blanket and then giving him food and water was next - bread and cheese in half-conscious little bites and gulps. Then she took off her spiky skirt and settled on the ground, her axe not far from her hand, pulling him against her in a bundled heap so that his back rested against her. Toothless curled around them both and Astrid leaned back against his scaly side, watching the fire dance in front of them for a moment, trying to stave off the feeling that the red-orange glow was seeping into her world. Then she looked at Hiccup's face as he lay there curled with his head on her shoulder. His eyes kept periodically flitting open, as if he was starting half-awake again every few minutes.

"You need to sleep," she told him matter-of-factly. "We're here. We're not going to let anything else happen to you."

Hiccup looked over at his dragon, feebly reaching out a hand to rest it on the Night Fury's head. The dragon made a quiet rumbling sound, a noise that could only mean he was trying to comfort his boy. It was almost like the dragon equivalent of a lullaby, deep and sonorous and strangely beautiful. The boy looked at his dragon with gratitude and his dragon looked back at him with love and for a moment, it was almost like Astrid could see the bond between them. The air felt heavy with it, as it there was something there, something solid enough to cut with her axe - only she knew that if that something actually was solid, no axe could cut it and no hammer could break it.

Just the knowledge that his dragon was there seemed to chase the last of Hiccup's fear away. The frown lines at his brow relaxed, his breathing evened out, his tense body went slack, and his eyes finally stayed closed. Astrid felt him taking long, even breaths where he rested against her and she let out a little breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Now _she_ was shaking.

He was safe. He was safe and warm, clothed and fed, cleaned and mended. She could feel his warm breath against her chin and neck where he was nestled against her.

He reaction to that - to him here, warm, breathing - was something visceral, a full-body reaction. Muscles finally unknotted and her stomach twisted into a knotted mess of emotion as if to make up for the new dearth of knots. She wanted to laugh even though nothing was funny and wanted to cry even though she was happy.

All because this stupid boy had gone and gotten himself kidnapped.

But it was okay now (even though parts of it weren't okay and wouldn't be until she had time to clean the blood from her axe).

Toothless suddenly perked his head up and shortly after, there was the sound of wings flapping on the wind. Astrid reached for her axe, just in case, but Thornado's cry in distance made it clear who was approaching.

Stoick was already leaping off his dragon and thudding heavily to the ground before it even landed, bounding over, visibly terrified by the relative stillness of Hiccup's form.

"He's okay," Astrid said quickly. "I cleaned him up, patched him up, and got some food and water in him."

"How bad -?"

"Only his fingers were broken. Otherwise, it was just cuts, scraped, a few burns - he was in worse shape after he fought the Green Death. He's just exhausted. I just got him to go to sleep."

Stoick knelt next to them, his hands hovering over his son as if he was afraid he'd shatter him to pieces with a touch.

That didn't last for long. Astrid helped move him so Stoick could sweep him up into his arms and bundle him up in his fur cloak.

Bundled in the furs, Hiccup's unswollen eye peeped open.

"Dad?" he said weakly, his voice raw.

"I'm here, son." The chief's voice was thick. "We're going to take you home."

"I think - I think I'm gonna let Phlegma take over the negotiations now," Hiccup said and somehow, despite it all, his tone was rather wry.

"Seeing as the real Bertha helped us with the rescue effort, it's not something any of us have to worry about anymore. Don't you worry about a thing. Go back to sleep."

The other Vikings crowded in, looking on as Stoick the Vast, the ever-imposing chief of Berk, cradled his son like an infant, looking as if he was a hair's breadth away from crying like an infant himself.

"Hiccup's gonna be okay, right?" asked Snotlout. "I mean, he got beat up but he's not dead, so he's gonna be okay, right?"

"What he went through," said Gobber, "is the kind of thing that could break some of the strongest o' Vikings. But he's a strong boy and he's got the rest of us. It might take some time, but he should recover just fine."

It was right then that Astrid saw Hiccup's eyes briefly flutter open, as if what Gobber said had made him think of something important. It was the shrewd, calculating face he made when he figured out something clever or finally solved a problem he'd be fussing over for weeks.

It was his "I have a plan" face.

Then, just as suddenly as it was there, it was gone. His eyes flicked shut again and he slipped away to the welcoming realms of sleep.

Astrid wondered if it was just some strange nervous reaction or if it had meant something as she helped set up camp and they worked on the line up for the night watch, but by the time she was ready to sleep, she was too tired to wonder or worry about anything.

"Astrid, you should have seen how you whaled on those Outcasts," Tuffnut said to her as the teens all settled in. "You went totally berserker."

"I did not," Astrid protested. "...did I?"

"I'd say it's a distinct possibility," said Fishlegs. "Even at your most focused, I've never seen you move that fast before."

"It was weird, like...the whole world went red and all I could think about was getting the annoying things in my way out of my way," Astrid said.

"They just happened to be people," Snotlout said helpfully.

Astrid frowned. "Just like you happen to be a person," she said threateningly.

"Boy, I sure am tired," Snotlout said, faux-yawning and rolling over.

"What was it like?" asked Ruffnut. "We knocked a few riders out of the air but they got back up again. I don't think we killed anybody."

"It was like...it was like all I saw was red and it wasn't a color. It was a living thing pushing me forward - and the only thing that would make it happy, make it stop pushing...was if there was more red."

"Oh man, that is so cool," said Tuffnut. "I wish I could go into a trance state and have a murderous breakdown. Some people have all the luck."

"Yeah," Astrid said slowly, still not knowing how to feel about it. "I guess I'm just lucky."

It was a good thing, wasn't it? Being able to react that way with enemies.

Wasn't it?

* * *

When Astrid woke the next morning, it was to Stoick's concerned voice waking up everyone else in the camp that wasn't already up from the watch.

"Hiccup?"

Astrid sat up quickly, hand going straight to the handle of her axe. "What is it? What's going on?" she asked, going from groggy-to-hostile in an impressive five seconds flat.

Hiccup was sitting in the grass of the field, in a dirt patch, his hands fumbling away at something. He seemed frustrated with his broken fingers and how some of them had been bandaged together with his other fingers.

"Oh," he said distantly. "Hi, dad. Hi. I'm just - you know how it is. You wake up first thing in the morning and have to fix something. I'm just - I'm fixing it."

"What are you - why do you think you need to fix something?" Stoick asked slowly, confused, moving over to kneel next to his son. Hiccup shied away just a bit, as if the movement had alarmed him

"That's what I do," Hiccup said shakily. "When I'm not breaking everything, I'm fixing everything. Hiccup the great big hero, Hiccup the dragon conqueror, always saving the day, always..."

For just a few seconds, he trailed off, looking out into the distance as if his mind had suddenly gone somewhere very far away. Anyone that hadn't been paying attention to the conversation now was, watching Hiccup's conversation with his father with great concern.

"I think I'm doing both this time," he finally said. "I broke everything so now I have to fix it. A two-fer."

"Son, what are you talking about?" Stoick asked with great concern. "What did you break?"

"Oh, just the world," Hiccup said tremulously.

Stoick almost laughed at that but Hiccup's serious expression stopped him from doing it. "Hiccup, you didn't break the world -"

"But I did!" his voice cracked. "I broke our world - I changed something and it was like a siege weapon - it was like. Well. You know how it is, move one part and the calibration is off. I moved a piece and now it won't work anymore. But that's okay!" He reached out a bandaged hand for his father's massive one and patted it gently. "I just - I just need time to fix this."

He went back to work on what looked like... well it looked like a big pile of flowers.

"Hiccup -"

"Dad. You're distracting me," Hiccup said, sounding annoyed. Finally, he seemed finished with...whatever he was doing. "There! It's perfect!"

It was...a mess. It looked like maybe it was supposed to be a daisy crown, like he used to make for her and Ruffnut when he was very little, back in the days when he was just the small boy that was the chief's son and not a walking disaster. But it was barely holding together, no doubt because of his crippled fingers.

He got up unsteadily and walked over to Astrid, kneeling in front of where she was crouched on the ground, and placed it on her head. It started to fall apart as soon as he did.

"You get the first prototype. It'll keep you safe from Alvin."

He smiled at her and it was one of his usual smiles, the "Look what I made, do you like it?" smile. Astrid looked into his eyes and he stared back, then briefly rested his forehead against hers and turned away, leaving her sitting there with her eyes glassy and her mouth hanging open in shock and horror.

Her expression was mirrored by the chief's face, only his was tinged with a much deeper devastation. The same shock and horror was on the faces of every Viking watching.

Hiccup settled back down and started picking more wildflowers.

"Now I've just gotta make enough for everyone in both of the our villages. See? I've got this. We're covered on this whole The-Outcasts-Can-Ride-Dragons thing."

He went back to work. They sat stewing in the silence that came when one acknowledged their own failure.

"Oh, _Hiccup,_" said Gobber sadly, but the boy ignored it, patiently weaving together flower stems with broken fingers, desperately trying to fix what was broken, while all the others wondered how in the world they would do the same.


End file.
